puniness

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pu·ny

(pyo͞o′nē)

adj. pu·ni·er, pu·ni·est

1. Of inferior size, strength, or significance; weak: a puny physique; puny excuses.

2. Chiefly Southern US Sickly; ill.

[Variant of puisne.]

pu′ni·ly adv.

pu′ni·ness n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Noun	1.	puniness - the quality of being unimportant and petty or frivolous slightness, triviality, pettiness unimportance - the quality of not being important or worthy of note joke - a triviality not to be taken seriously; "I regarded his campaign for mayor as a joke"
	2.	puniness - smallness of stature runtiness, stuntedness littleness, smallness - the property of having a relatively small size

puniness

noun

The condition of being infirm or physically weak:

debility, decrepitude, delicacy, delicateness, feebleness, flimsiness, fragileness, fragility, frailness, frailty, infirmity, insubstantiality, unsoundness, unsubstantiality, weakliness, weakness.

Translations

ضَعْف، هُزال

mrňavost

skrøbelighed

Schwächlichkeit

véznaság

òaî aî vera veiklulegur

neduživosť

mecalsizlik

弱小

puniness

n → Schwächlichkeit f, → Mickerigkeit f (pej)

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

puny

(ˈpjuːni) adjective

small and weak. a puny child.

ˈpunily adverb

ˈpuniness noun

References in classic literature ?

Out of his puniness and fright he challenged and menaced the whole wide world.

View in context

[...] [H]is kind of doctor would be alive to the monstrous patterns of fate, and to the vain and comic denial of the inevitable; he would press the enfeebled pulse, hear the expiring breath, feel the fevered hand begin to cool and reflect, in the manner that only literature and religion teach, on the puniness and nobility of mankind ...

"What Are Novelists For?" Atonement and the British Novel/"?Para que sirven los novelistas?" Expiacion y la novela britanica

We who loathed the booming war were accustomed to puniness. That we could suddenly be counted in five figures was, for the moment, enough to make us think that we might actually accomplish the impossibleend a war.

In Honor of a Moment of Awakening, 50 Years on From April 17, 1965

"She behaves strangely she has puniness will suffer weakness I can tell from her walking." (69; driver; wife in menopause).

A qualitative study on menopause described from the man's perspective

tolerance and the long view, an inconspicuously warm heart and cool judgment; his kind of doctor would be alive to the monstrous patterns of fate, and to the vain and comic denial of the inevitable; he would press the enfeebled pulse, hear the expiring breath, feel the fevered hand begin to cool and reflect, in the manner that only literature and religion could teach, on the puniness and nobility of mankind ...