ˈrunty, a. U.S. and dial.
[f. runt n.]
1. Dwarfish, undersized; small and ill-made; of low, thick-set build. Also Comb.
| 1807 W. Irving Salmagundi (1824) 86 A trio of as odd, runty, mummy-looking originals as ever Hogarth fancied in his most happy moments. 1834 Burgon in Goulburn Life (1892) I. 81 These runty little thick-set Yorkshire men seem to consider me as a wild beast escaped from some show. 1848 in Farmer & Henley Slang (1903) VI. 84/2 ‘No indeed,’ ses another little runty-lookin' feller—we've got enuff to do to take care of our own babys in these diggins. 1891 T. N. Page Ole Virginia 42 Sometimes you see a weevly runty pig in a right good litter. 1903 J. London People of Abyss xii. 143 We cannot understand the starved and runty toiler of the East End..till we look at the strapping Life Guardsmen of the West End. 1938 M. K. Rawlings Yearling xiv. 156 Us Baxters is all runty and tough. 1972 New Yorker 22 Jan. 100/2 A young English mother..gets herself sexually awakened by a runty Italian actor... If Miranda were more intelligent and Oreste less swinish, their obsessive affair might touch us deeply. 1974 Sci. Amer. Nov. 61/1 The treated birds were runty and deficient in lymphocytes; all cell-mediated immune functions were suppressed. |
2. dial. Surly, ill-tempered, obstinate.
| a 1825–66 in dial. glossaries (E. Anglia, Linc., Northampt.). |