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单词 puny
释义

Definition of puny in English:

puny

adjectivepunier, puniest ˈpjuːniˈpjuni
  • 1Small and weak.

    white-faced, puny children
    Example sentencesExamples
    • Surely, as this puny, completely drunk man lay on top of that poor child, any one of them could have yanked him off?
    • Father never really liked me, because I was weak and puny, the smallest amongst all my siblings.
    • In Angel's mind, she thought Gunther was short and puny but sweet.
    • Grendel, a puny lean man with a wicked narrow face and a long nose, was enjoying a pink bubbling liquid in a gold bath.
    • One of the truly distressing studies of recent times showed that a majority of Scottish men choose to be overweight because they don't want to appear puny.
    • All the youngsters look terribly puny, as if they need to sign up for a bodybuilding course.
    • His size might've been puny, but his strength and his lust for battle made up for it all.
    • Can you imagine Sachin Tendulkar being reduced to tears by some puny little coach?
    • They had been beaten by a puny little girl, at least eight inches shorter and scrawny.
    • The Viking soldiers tried to attack but most had fled and the others were weak and puny.
    • Their gigantic footballers have seen off the puny English opposition.
    • If he was a puny bloke, I'd carry the heavy things.
    • He is a dreamer, a schemer, but truth is young Ruskin is puny, skinny and, in the tradition of geeky leads, he wears glasses.
    • After a few hours, the muscles on my pathetically puny arms were beginning to ache.
    • He has a puny physique, so he cannot be only an action hero,.
    • Despite being puny, I could beat all the boys at school.
    • The females, for whom size apparently does matter, find the males puny and unappealing.
    • But a too short, too skinny, too old quarterback with a puny arm could be changing that.
    • You've got muscly legs, which are the size of pins, and muscly arms, which are puny!
    Synonyms
    undersized, underdeveloped, undernourished, underfed, stunted, slight, small, little, diminutive, dwarfish, pygmy
    weak, feeble, weakly, sickly, delicate, frail, fragile
    informal weedy, pint-sized
    pitiful, pitiable, inadequate, negligible, insufficient, scant, scanty, derisory, miserable, sorry, wretched, meagre, paltry, trifling, trivial, insignificant, inconsequential, petty
    informal pathetic, measly, piddling, piffling, mingy, poxy, dinky
    rare exiguous
    1. 1.1 Poor in quality, amount, or size.
      the army was reduced to a puny 100,000 men
      Example sentencesExamples
      • My lack of faith and fear about writing now seemed puny and indefensible.
      • It is to his puny praise and pathetic shopping list of desires that God, the Creator of All, elects to listen to daily.
      • Her list of credits would make your puny little life look like a bad joke.
      • It is simply not worth the hassle to deal in such a puny amount - dealing costs will take out a hefty chunk of any profit on the shares.
      • Your pathetic and puny mind is incapable of any true thought, and merely lurches from situation to situation.
      • The reaction so far has been a sweeping condemnation of the team's hitters, who are described as inept and puny and feeble.
      • They show how puny the supposed threat can seem, how feeble strutting columns of third world soldiery can abruptly become.
      • It is a reminder that for all that the human race has accomplished in increasing its power over the environment, it is still puny in the face of the great natural forces.
      • Third, stay in the book business long enough to change the market dynamic and plow all those pitifully puny stores under.
      • The answer that, ‘We are too puny to understand the purposes of God’ is not an explanation.
      • But Stack carries the comic weight of the show on his puny underdeveloped shoulders and succeeds as an Atlas of anarchy.
      • At a gut level, however, $35 million sounds puny compared to the devastation in the region.
      • James Brown has funk power, and had it even when his bands were playing through puny PA systems in rooms that were too large for them.
      • With a puny drive and paltry track record, he has only accuracy off the tee to commend him, but it has not prevented the galleries accepting him as one of their own.
      • Any potential increase in engine power will always be puny in comparison to the amount of drag faced.
      • Do my insane ramblings ring a delicate bell in your puny, thoughtless brain?
      • Severe infections result in pale, puny reds and weak whites.
      • A starter confit of duck turned out to be one very puny, dry and underseasoned duck leg which tasted roasted not preserved in salt and fat as a proper confit should be.
      • It had to be puny if a relatively weak top break handgun mechanism could safely hold it.
      • Japanese policemen's guns are small and sort of puny.
      Synonyms
      meagre, scanty, scant, paltry, limited, disappointing, restricted, reduced, modest, insufficient, inadequate, sparse, spare, deficient, negligible, insubstantial, skimpy, short, little, lean, small, slight, slender

Derivatives

  • punily

  • adverb
    • Two Mushtaqs of Pakistani cricket, both of who were punily built and bowled legspin, have totally diverging views though.
      Example sentencesExamples
      • And when, at the end of the first scene, the tribunes itemise the hero's flaws, Hicks is again visible making his detractors appear punily envious.
  • puniness

  • noun ˈpjuːnɪnəsˈpjuninəs
    • The book seems to be about the fear of death, the culture of death, the arrogance and puniness of men and women in the face of death, and even the defeat of death.
      Example sentencesExamples
      • Paintings that depict the beauty and immensity of nature and man's puniness within it were a specialty of Romantic painters.
      • In the film, Macy's character was totally enclosed in the irony and yet we could identify with his desperate puniness without hoping for him to get away with his crime.
      • Besides, the point of the original version's visual extravagance was not to show off; it was to contrast the grandeur of the characters' silly young dreams with the puniness of their old, educated bitterness.
      • I smiled to myself in response to their physical puniness.

Origin

Mid 16th century (as a noun denoting a younger or more junior person): phonetic spelling of puisne.

  • posthumous from early 17th century:

    In English posthumous means ‘happening after a person's death’. Latin postumus, on which it is based, meant ‘last’. A baby born posthumously (the most common use of the word), after the death of its father, would be the father's last child. The h was added to the spelling of the English word because of the influence of humus ‘ground, earth’, or humare ‘to bury’, both words that relate to the idea of death. The French near relative of postumus was puisne, formed from puis ‘afterwards’ and ‘born’. This originally meant a younger person, and is the source of our puny (mid 16th century).

Rhymes

cartoony, lacunae, loony, Moonie, moony, Nguni, Rooney, spoony, uni
 
 

Definition of puny in US English:

puny

adjectiveˈpjuniˈpyo͞onē
  • 1Small and weak.

    skeletal, white-faced, puny children
    Example sentencesExamples
    • But a too short, too skinny, too old quarterback with a puny arm could be changing that.
    • If he was a puny bloke, I'd carry the heavy things.
    • You've got muscly legs, which are the size of pins, and muscly arms, which are puny!
    • After a few hours, the muscles on my pathetically puny arms were beginning to ache.
    • His size might've been puny, but his strength and his lust for battle made up for it all.
    • In Angel's mind, she thought Gunther was short and puny but sweet.
    • The females, for whom size apparently does matter, find the males puny and unappealing.
    • All the youngsters look terribly puny, as if they need to sign up for a bodybuilding course.
    • He has a puny physique, so he cannot be only an action hero,.
    • Can you imagine Sachin Tendulkar being reduced to tears by some puny little coach?
    • They had been beaten by a puny little girl, at least eight inches shorter and scrawny.
    • He is a dreamer, a schemer, but truth is young Ruskin is puny, skinny and, in the tradition of geeky leads, he wears glasses.
    • Surely, as this puny, completely drunk man lay on top of that poor child, any one of them could have yanked him off?
    • The Viking soldiers tried to attack but most had fled and the others were weak and puny.
    • Father never really liked me, because I was weak and puny, the smallest amongst all my siblings.
    • Grendel, a puny lean man with a wicked narrow face and a long nose, was enjoying a pink bubbling liquid in a gold bath.
    • Their gigantic footballers have seen off the puny English opposition.
    • Despite being puny, I could beat all the boys at school.
    • One of the truly distressing studies of recent times showed that a majority of Scottish men choose to be overweight because they don't want to appear puny.
    Synonyms
    undersized, underdeveloped, undernourished, underfed, stunted, slight, small, little, diminutive, dwarfish, pygmy
    pitiful, pitiable, inadequate, negligible, insufficient, scant, scanty, derisory, miserable, sorry, wretched, meagre, paltry, trifling, trivial, insignificant, inconsequential, petty
    1. 1.1 Poor in quality, amount, or size.
      the army was reduced to a puny 100,000 men
      Example sentencesExamples
      • They show how puny the supposed threat can seem, how feeble strutting columns of third world soldiery can abruptly become.
      • Her list of credits would make your puny little life look like a bad joke.
      • With a puny drive and paltry track record, he has only accuracy off the tee to commend him, but it has not prevented the galleries accepting him as one of their own.
      • Any potential increase in engine power will always be puny in comparison to the amount of drag faced.
      • Do my insane ramblings ring a delicate bell in your puny, thoughtless brain?
      • Your pathetic and puny mind is incapable of any true thought, and merely lurches from situation to situation.
      • Third, stay in the book business long enough to change the market dynamic and plow all those pitifully puny stores under.
      • Japanese policemen's guns are small and sort of puny.
      • A starter confit of duck turned out to be one very puny, dry and underseasoned duck leg which tasted roasted not preserved in salt and fat as a proper confit should be.
      • The reaction so far has been a sweeping condemnation of the team's hitters, who are described as inept and puny and feeble.
      • At a gut level, however, $35 million sounds puny compared to the devastation in the region.
      • It is simply not worth the hassle to deal in such a puny amount - dealing costs will take out a hefty chunk of any profit on the shares.
      • It is a reminder that for all that the human race has accomplished in increasing its power over the environment, it is still puny in the face of the great natural forces.
      • The answer that, ‘We are too puny to understand the purposes of God’ is not an explanation.
      • My lack of faith and fear about writing now seemed puny and indefensible.
      • It is to his puny praise and pathetic shopping list of desires that God, the Creator of All, elects to listen to daily.
      • It had to be puny if a relatively weak top break handgun mechanism could safely hold it.
      • James Brown has funk power, and had it even when his bands were playing through puny PA systems in rooms that were too large for them.
      • Severe infections result in pale, puny reds and weak whites.
      • But Stack carries the comic weight of the show on his puny underdeveloped shoulders and succeeds as an Atlas of anarchy.
      Synonyms
      meagre, scanty, scant, paltry, limited, disappointing, restricted, reduced, modest, insufficient, inadequate, sparse, spare, deficient, negligible, insubstantial, skimpy, short, little, lean, small, slight, slender

Origin

Mid 16th century (as a noun denoting a younger or more junior person): phonetic spelling of puisne.

 
 
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更新时间:2024/12/23 14:30:30