runt

Meaning

1. The smallest animal of a litter.
2. (broadly) The smallest child in the family.
3. Undersized or stunted plant, animal or person.
4. (slang) An uninfluential or unimportant person; a nobody.
5. An Ethernet packet that does not meet the medium's minimum packet size of 64 bytes.
6. A single word (or portion of a hyphenated word) that appears as the last line of a paragraph.
7. A breed of pigeon related to the carrier pigeon.
8. (UK, dialectal, obsolete) A hardened stem or stalk of a plant.
9. A bow.

Synonyms

dwarf

shrimp

🦐

midget

midgit

half-pint

peewee

smallest

weakling

short person

gnome

minim

small animal

pigmy

pipsqueak

pygmy

runty

shorty

freak

elf

🧝

stunted

troll

🧌

abortion

wuss

hag

youngest

lilliputian

manikin

midge

Translations

avorton

mucca nana

nano

tappo

Zwerg

bücür

nain

freluquet

demi

chétif

Missgeburt

crevette

🦐

caguerot

nabot

νανώδες ζώο

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈɹʌnt/

Etymology

Cognate with Middle Dutch: runt

In summary

The OED classifies this word as "of obscure origin". Some see a connection to Middle Dutch runt (“ox”), but the OED considers this to be unlikely.