DWARF • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Dwarf

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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

... doing that for?" asked Fred. "To keep you awake," said the little dwarf. "You are in Wide-Awake Land, and no one goes ...

— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various

... with her whip-end on the wooden measure, stopped when she grew conscious of it. It seemed to her blurred fancy more than a deadening sky: a something solemn and unknown, hinting of evil to come. The dwarf-pines on the road-side scowled weakly at her through the gray; the very silver minnows in the pools she passed flashed frightened away, and darkened into the muddy niches. There was a vague dread in the sudden silence. She called to the old donkey, ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... lingered where those rocks aspire, I saw a dwarf guide two of goodly strain; Whose coming added hope to my desire (Alas! desire and hope alike were vain) Both barons bold, and fearful in their ire: The one Gradasso, King of Sericane, The next, of youthful vigour, ...

— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... said," answered the Farmer's wife, knitting calmly on. "Like a dwarf, you know, with a largish head for his body. Not taller than—why, my Bill, or your eldest boy, perhaps. And he was dressed in rags, with an old cloak on, and stamping with passion at a cobweb he couldn't get at with his broom. They've ...

— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... which we had reached the door of our gallery, wound upward beyond it to the top of the tower, and gave issue by a low doorway upon the dwarf battlements, from which sprang a spire some eighty feet high. This spire was, in fact, a narrowing octagon, its sides hung with slate, its eight ridges faced with Bath stone, and edged from top ...

— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

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