puny

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French puisné (“younger, literally born afterwards”),^[2][3][4][5] also Anglo-Norman puisné, recorded from 1155 with the senses younger, junior and later.^[6][7] It is a spelling of puisne that shows the pronunciation,^{[3][8][9][10]} and the OED and Barnhart note that puny is the earlier of the two in English.^[7][4] The French word is formed from puis (“afterwards”), from Vulgar Latin *postius, an alteration of Latin posteā (“afterwards”), and né (“born”), from Latin nātus, the past participle of nāscor (“to be born”).^[7][4][2][5] In Old French it was contrasted with aisné (“first-born”).^[5] Etymonline traces the Latin verb to Proto-Indo-European *gene- (“to give birth, beget”).^[5] The ending is not the suffix -y, though it came to be felt as one.^[4][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

A junior or newly admitted pupil or student, usually in the plural: 1548, in W. Patten's Expedicion into Scotlande.^[7] Etymonline also dates this noun, junior pupil, freshman, to the 1540s.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The word first meant someone born later, and so younger or junior: in the 16th century a puny was a freshman, a younger person, a novice, or an inferior (from 1579), and a puny judge was a junior judge.^[7][3][8] Trench pointed out that the sense "weak and small" is only inferred from "younger".^[12] The new sense, small, weak or insignificant, is recorded from about 1594,^[7] and Shakespeare used it in Richard II: "A puny subject strikes / At thy great glory".^[3][4][13] From before 1616 it was used of undersized, feeble people, animals and plants.^[7] Johnson (1755) still gave "young" as the first sense, and "inferior; petty" as the second.^[13] According to Ayto, since the 18th century the spelling puny has been kept for "feeble, small", while puisne survives for a judge of junior rank.^[14] In the American South and South Midland puny means sickly or ailing (from before 1766), and there it is also a verb, to be ill or to go about listlessly.^[7][15] In Antrim, in Ireland, the word was used of a delicate stomach.^[16]

Timeline

• 1548 – a junior or newly admitted pupil, a freshman (obsolete by 1673).^[7]
• 1567 – a younger or more junior person (obsolete).^[7]
• c. 1570 – a novice, a beginner (obsolete).^[7]
• 1579 – an inferior, a person of no importance; adjective, junior, inferior in rank.^[7]
• c. 1594 – small, weak, insignificant.^[7]
• before 1616 – of a person or animal, undersized and feeble, in Shakespeare's Othello.^[7]
• before 1766 – sickly, ailing, chiefly in the southern United States.^[7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Small and weak in build or strength; feeble: a puny kitten.^[17][2][7]
2. Small or weak in amount, force or importance; paltry or insignificant: The council made a puny effort to repair the roads.^[17][2][7]
3. (Southern US) In poor health; sickly.^[7][15][2]
4. (obsolete) Junior; inferior in rank, like a puisne judge.^[7][2][13]
5. (obsolete) Inexperienced, raw.^[7][2][8]

Noun

1. (archaic) An inferior or a person of no account.^[7][8]
2. (obsolete) A junior pupil, a freshman; a novice.^[7][2][8]

Word family

• punily
• puniness

Related words

• puisne
• native
• nature
• innate

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
13. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
15. ^ a b Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
17. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins