Noun: puny
| Singular | puny |
| Plural | punies |
Sample Sentences
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[T]hou chuff, thou puny, thou got in the peasestraw thou losel, thou chitterling, thou spawn of a rebel, thou dykedropt, […] [1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 14: Oxen of the Sun]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 374:]
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[A] law that the eldeſt or firſt-borne child ſhall ſucceede and inherite all: where nothing is reſerved for punies, but obedience: […] Theſe vaine ſhadowes of our religion, which are ſeene in ſome of theſe examples, witnes the dignitie and divinity thereof. [1603, Michel de Montaigne, “An Apologie of Raymond Sebond”, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC, pages 333–334:]
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For a worthy man is wounded more deeply by his own Generalls neglect, then by his enemies ſword: […] Who had rather others ſhould make a ladder of his dead corps to ſcale a city by it, then a bridge of him whileſt alive for his punies to give him the Goe-by, and paſſe over him to preferment. [1642, Thomas Fuller, “The Good Generall”, in The Holy State, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] Roger Daniel for John Williams, […], →OCLC, book IV, paragraph 5, page 328:]
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Nay then I ſee thou'rt but a puny in the ſubtill Miſtery of a woman: […] [1607, attributed to Thomas Middleton or Cyril Tourneur, The Revengers Tragædie. […], London: […] G[eorge] Eld, […], →OCLC, Act I:]
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[T]he whole companye or most parte of the Studentꝭ [Studentis] of the same house mette toogether to beginne their Christmas, of wᶜʰ som̃e came to see sports […] others to make sporte wᵗʰall of this last sorte were they whome they call Fresh-menn Punies of the first yeare, who are by no meanes admitted to be agent's or behoulders of those sports, before themselues haue biñe patient perfourmers of them. [c. 1610, “[The Election of the Prince]”, in Frederick S[amuel] Boas, editor, The Christmas Prince (The Malone Society Reprints; 47b), London: Printed for the Malone Society by Frederick Hall M.A. at the Oxford University Press, published 1923 (indicated as 1922), →OCLC, page 3, lines 9–12 and 14–18:]
Nouns inflected like puny
clitoridectomy,
royal jelly,
whoopsy,
surrogacy,
urinary,
rastrography,
renoscopy,
sourtop blueberry,
forcible entry,
superficiary,
lipidosity,
potability,
phonography,
hyperproperty,
greenery,
conjugality,
ring singularity,
Brittany,
ignobility,
obscurity, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. Etymology tree
2. Proto-Indo-European *pós
3. Proto-Indo-European *-ti
4. Proto-Indo-European *pósti
5. Proto-Italic *posti
6. Old Latin poste
7. Latin post
8. Proto-Indo-European *íh₂
9. Latin ea
10. Latin posteā
11. Vulgar Latin *postius
12. Old French puis
13. Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁-
14. Proto-Indo-European *-tós
15. Proto-Indo-European *ǵn̥h₁tós
16. Proto-Italic *gnātos
17. Latin gnātus
18. Latin nātus
19. Old French né
20. Old French puisné
21. Middle French puisnébor.
22. English puisne
23. English puny
24. PIE word
25. *pós
26. A respelling of puisne, from Anglo-Norman puisné (“later, more recent; junior; weakly”) [and other forms] and Middle French puisné (“born after (a specified person); younger, youngest; one who is born after (a specified person)”) (modern French puîné (“cadet (born after a sibling); a cadet (someone born after a sibling)”)), from puis (“after; since”) + né (“born”). Puis is derived from Old French pois (“after; since”), from Vulgar Latin *postius (“afterward”), from Latin posteā (“afterwards; hereafter; thereafter; next, then”), from post (“after; since”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pós (“afterwards”)) + ea (“these (things)”); and né from Latin nātus (“born”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁- (“to beget; to give birth; to produce”). See: French Nouns '
puîné', Latin Nouns '
nātus'.