small peoplen.

1696 M. Pitt Acct. Ann Jefferies 15 I was one day knitting of Stockings in the Arbour in the Garden, and there came over the Garden-hedg of a sudden six small People, all in green Clothes.

1865 R. Hunt Pop. Romances W. Eng. 1st Ser. 65 The Small People are believed by some to be the spirits of people who inhabited Cornwall many thousands of years ago.

1988 St. Petersburg (Florida) Times (Nexis) 3 Feb. 4 I spent lots of time looking for small people... I knew..they put the dewdrops in the spiderwebs, but I never could find them.

2007 Western Morning News (Plymouth) (Nexis) 25 May 12 The installation..will take the form of an investigation of fairydom, complete with..‘evidence’ of the existence of small people.

1829 Museum Foreign Lit. & Sci. Dec. 558/1 Dolls, toys, and gingerbread, for the same small people.

1849 W. M. Thackeray Hist. Samuel Titmarsh & Great Hoggarty Diamond ix. 100 There was a garden that certain small people might play in when they came.

1890 Gospel in All Lands Apr. 159/2 The lordly father rarely condescends to take much notice of the small people of his household, especially if they be daughters.

1937 Frederick (Maryland) Post 4 Dec. 4/6 Now we know that small people need ‘exercisers’, that the pre-schoolers need things to do that teach dexterity.

1993 L. Colwin More Home Cooking xvii. 90 You will not be driven insane at the supermarket by small people trying to bug you into buying piles of additive-filled junk.

2012 Times (Nexis) 10 July 2 If you have children in the back it's even better, since the presence of small people usually acts as a brake on swearing and/or physical violence.

1848 J. S. Buckingham France, Piedmont, Italy, Lombardy, Tyrol, & Bavaria I. xi. 171 A Dwarf, with a guitar, asked charity of us, in a song; the place is said to be remarkable for small people.

1919 Nat. Hist. Dec. 698/1 Sergio records numbers of small people from the peninsulas and adjacent islands of southern Europe, existing even now.

1984 G. Jones Hist. Vikings (rev. ed.) iii. v. 294 These Scraelinga, says the thirteenth-century Historia Norvegiae, were small people (homunciones ).

2003 Independent 11 Nov. ii. 5/4 ‘People of restricted growth’ is less likely to upset anyone, but some dislike being defined by their medical condition. They may prefer to be called ‘small people’, or ‘people of short stature’.