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noun

Dwarf n. (pl. dwarfs)

An animal or plant which is much below the ordinary size of its species or kind.

Especially: A diminutive human being, small in stature due to a pathological condition which causes a distortion of the proportions of body parts to each other, such as the limbs, torso, and head. A person of unusually small height who has normal body proportions is usually called a midget. Note: During the Middle Ages dwarfs as well as fools shared the favor of courts and the nobility.

(Folklore) A small, usually misshapen person, typically a man, who may have magical powers; mythical dwarves were often depicted as living underground in caves. Note: Dwarf is used adjectively in reference to anything much below the usual or normal size; as, a dwarf pear tree; dwarf honeysuckle.

Dwarf elder (Bot.), danewort.

Dwarf wall (Arch.), a low wall, not as high as the story of a building, often used as a garden wall or fence.

verb

Dwarf v. t. (past & past part. dwarfed; pres. part. dwarfing) To hinder from growing to the natural size; to make or keep small; to stunt. "Even the most common moral ideas and affections... would be stunted and dwarfed, if cut off from a spiritual background."

Dwarf v. i. To become small; to diminish in size. "Strange power of the world that, the moment we enter it, our great conceptions dwarf."

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Etymology of 'Dwarf'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Dwarf" Quotes from Famous Books

... garbage-tainted air of the old market offended him, and Soho seemed more than ever the disenchanted home of rapscallionism. Alone, the Restaurant Bretagne, neat, daintily painted, with its blue tubs and the dwarf trees therein, retained an aloof and Frenchified self-respect. It was the slack hour, and pale trim waitresses were preparing the little tables for dinner. Soames went through into the private part. To his discomfiture Annette ...

— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... the statement is, it is a better theology than many another of much larger dimensions. Many people do not understand this alliance in which we are led into union with God, through the Holy Spirit. They think it is more like the old story of the dwarf and the giant, who went a warfare together, in which expedition the dwarf lost his arms and legs, and was only saved from imminent death in each conflict by the happy arrival of the giant. One can ...

— Memoranda Sacra • J. Rendel Harris

... between St. George's Sound and the Gulf coast we traversed a vast swamp, where the ground was carpeted with the dwarf saw palmettos. A fire had killed all the large trees, and their blasted, leafless forms were covered with the flaunting tresses of Spanish moss. The tops of many of these trees were crowned by the Osprey's nest, and the birds were sitting on their eggs, or feeding ...

— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop

... the news reached him that the king had already started for the court of the Swan fairy. Riquette was thrown into transports of grief, and implored her father to prevent the marriage, which Ismenor promised to do; and calling for an ugly and humpbacked little dwarf named Rabot, he performed some spells which transported them quickly to a rocky valley through which the king and his escort were bound to pass. When the tramp of horses was heard, the magician took ...

— The Olive Fairy Book • Various

... garlands of wild jessamine, whose yellow bells, like tiny golden cups, exhale a perfume like that of the heliotrope and fill the air with sweetness, and cover the woods with perfect curtains of bloom; while underneath all this, spread the spears and fans of the dwarf palmetto, and innumerable tufts of a little shrub whose delicate leaves are pale green underneath and a polished dark brown above, while close to the earth clings a perfect carpet of thick-growing green, ...

— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

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