dwarf

From Middle English dwergh, dwerw, dwerf, from Old English dweorg, from Proto-West Germanic *dwerg, from Proto-Germanic *dwergaz.

Cognate with Scots dwerch; Old High German twerc (German Zwerg); Old Norse dvergr (Swedish dvärg); Old Frisian dwirg (West Frisian dwerch); Middle Low German dwerch, dwarch, twerg (German Low German Dwarg, Dwarch); Middle Dutch dwerch, dworch (Dutch dwerg).

The Modern English noun has undergone complex phonetic changes. The form dwarf is the regular continuation of Old English dweorg, but the plural dweorgas would have given rise to dwarrows and the oblique stem dweorge- would have led to dwery. These forms are sometimes found as the nominative singular in Middle English texts and in English dialects. A parallel case is that of Old English burg giving burgh, borough, burrow, bury.

• (General American) enPR: dwôrf, IPA^(key): /dwɔɹf/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /dwɔːf/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)f

dwarf (plural dwarfs or dwarves)

1. (mythology) Any member of a race of beings from (especially Scandinavian and other Germanic) folklore, usually depicted as having some sort of supernatural powers and being skilled in crafting and metalworking, often as short with long beards, and sometimes as clashing with elves.

   Synonyms: dwarfin (rare), dwarrow (rare)

   • 2017, Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology, Bloomsbury Publishing, page 20:

     Nidavellir, which is sometimes called Svartalfheim, where the dwarfs (who are also known as dark elves) live beneath the mountains and build their remarkable creations.

2. (now sometimes offensive) A person of short stature, often one whose limbs are disproportionately small in relation to the body as compared with typical adults, usually as the result of a genetic condition.

   Synonyms: elf, midget, pygmy (imprecise)

   Antonyms: ettin (archaic), giant

3. An animal, plant or other thing much smaller than the usual of its sort.

   Synonym: runt

   dwarf tree

   dwarf honeysuckle

4. (astronomy) A dwarf star.
   • 2024 August 21, Ashley Strickland, “An unusual object is moving so fast it could escape the Milky Way. Scientists aren’t certain what it is”, in CNN‎:

     But none of those brown dwarfs were speeding along on a trajectory that would carry them out of the galaxy like “runaway” hypervelocity stars observed by astronomers in the last two decades.

At first, dwarfs was the only normative plural in English, and dwarves was considered incorrect.^[1] After J. R. R. Tolkien used dwarves in his works, that form became an acceptable plural for the mythological beings. For a non-mythological dwarf (people with dwarfism, small plants, animals, planets, stars, etc.), dwarfs has remained the preferred plural form. The use of dwarf to describe people with dwarfism is currently considered to be offensive by some.

dwarf (comparative dwarfer, superlative dwarfest)

1. (especially in botany) Miniature.

   The specimen is a very dwarf form of the plant.

   It is possible to grow the plants as dwarf as one desires.

dwarf (third-person singular simple present dwarfs, present participle dwarfing, simple past and past participle dwarfed)

1. (transitive) To render (much) smaller, turn into a dwarf (version).

   Synonyms: miniaturize, shrink

2. (transitive) To make appear (much) smaller, puny, tiny; to be much larger than.

   The newly-built skyscraper dwarfs all older buildings in the downtown skyline.

   • 1960 April, J. P. Wilson, E. N. C. Haywood, “The route through the Peak - Derby to Manchester: Part Two”, in Trains Illustrated, page 225:

     The train bursts from Rusher Cutting Tunnel with explosive violence, the engine's exhaust soaring high into the air, but dwarfed by the mighty limestone cliffs on either side.

   • 2013 May-June, Kevin Heng, “Why Does Nature Form Exoplanets Easily?”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 184:

     In the past two years, NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope has located nearly 3,000 exoplanet candidates ranging from sub-Earth-sized minions to gas giants that dwarf our own Jupiter.

3. (transitive) To make appear insignificant.

   Synonyms: eclipse, overshadow, outshadow, outshine, outdo, put to shame, upstage, surpass, outmatch, outstrip

   Bach dwarfs all other composers.

4. (intransitive) To become (much) smaller.

   Synonym: shrink

5. To hinder from growing to the natural size; to make or keep small; to stunt.
   • 1710 July 3 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison], “THURSDAY, June 22, 1710”, in The Spectator, number 98; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, , volume II, New York, N.Y.: D Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC:

     At present the whole sex is in a manner dwarfed and shrunk - into a race of beauties that seems almost another species

     The spelling has been modernized.

   • 1881, John Campbell Shairp, Aspects of Poetry:

     Even the most common moral ideas and affections […] would be stunted and dwarfed, if cut off from a spiritual background.

• Dwarf on Wikipedia.Wikipedia