runt
nounattested in dialogue
- United States//ɹʌnt//
- //ɹʊnt//
The smallest animal of a litter.
noun
- 1
The smallest animal of a litter.
Sometimes, as we have seen, one member of a litter is a runt, much smaller than the rest. He is unable to fight for food as strongly as the rest, and runts often die. We have considered the conditions under which it would actually pay a mother to let a runt die.
- 2
The smallest child in the family.
the runt of the family
- 3
Undersized or stunted plant, animal or person.
- 4
slangAn uninfluential or unimportant person; a nobody.
- 5
An Ethernet packet that does not meet the medium's minimum packet size of 64 bytes.
- 6
A single word (or portion of a hyphenated word) that appears as the last line of a paragraph.
- 7
A breed of pigeon related to the carrier pigeon.
- 8
obsoleteA hardened stem or stalk of a plant.
Neither young poles nor old runts are durable
- 9
A bow.
Etymology
The OED classifies this word as "of obscure origin". Some see a connection to Middle Dutch runt (“ox”), but the OED considers this to be unlikely. Possibly connected to Icelandic hrotti meaning "brute".
Forms
- plural
- runts