stunted, ppl. a.
(ˈstʌntɪd)
[f. stunt v.1 + -ed1.]
1. Checked in growth or development; of growth, checked, arrested. Hence, diminutive, dwarf.
| 1719 London & Wise Compl. Gard. p. xi, It can never be pleasing to see a stunted Tree. 1727 Pope Macer 11 Like stunted hide-bound Trees. 1776 Adam Smith W.N. I. i. xi. 234 That stunted breed [of cattle] which was common all over Scotland. 1821 Scott Kenilw. ix, A queer, shambling, ill-made urchin, who, by his stunted growth, seemed about twelve or thirteen years old. 1826 Jefferson Writ. (1830) IV. 427 The long succession of years of stunted crops. 1833 Q. Rev. XLIX. 407 Precocity of intellect in a stunted frame, is the grand desideratum in a Newmarket nursery. 1868 Darwin Anim. & Pl. I. iii. 78 These pigs on the Paramos are small and stunted. 1875 C. C. Blake Zool. 21 The innermost digit is often stunted or absent. 1890 Hardwicke's Science-Gossip XXVI. 141/1 The florets at apex opened first and the lower ones last..which gave the flower a stunted appearance. |
b. of immaterial things.
| 1658 F. Osborn Mem. Eliz. & James Epist. A 3, Scholars, who think it a sufficient excuse in the justification of a stunted Knowledge, to maintain an impossibility of transcending the Abilities of former Ages. 1864 Tennyson Aylmer's F. 357, I lived for years a stunted sunless life. 1911 W. W. Fowler Relig. Exper. Rom. People xii. 287 The old State religion remained, but in stunted form, and with paralysed vitality. |
2. Of a thing: Shortened; † worn down (obs.); also, disproportionately or abnormally short.
| 1716 Gay Trivia ii. 91 When waggish boys the stunted beesom ply To rid the slabby pavement. c 1844 Rossetti Bürger's Lenore Note (MS.), I have retained the German version..thinking it more suited to the metre than the lengthy English word ‘Leonora,’ and by far less unpleasing to the ear than the stunted and ugly abbreviation ‘Leonor’. 1845 Ecclesiologist IV. 89 A stunted chancel is affixed. 1898 C. J. C. Hyne Through Arctic Lapland ii. 24 He mounted on the stem-head of his steamer a stunted heavy-breeched gun. |
b. In the names of animals or plants, the individuals of which are diminutive in form.
| 1827 Griffith tr. Cuvier V. 38 Simia Jacchus Vulgaris (the Stunted Monkey or Jacchus). 1848 Johns Week at Lizard 271 Stunted Ox-eye Daisy. 1889 J. H. Maiden Usef. Pl. Australia 397 Casuarina distyla..‘Stunted She-oak’. |
Hence ˈstuntedly adv.; ˈstuntedness.
| 1740 Cheyne Regimen 66 The Stuntedness, Punyness and Feebleness, so conspicuous among the better Sort. 1864 Sala in Daily Tel. 15 Aug., The pure Indians..in the southern portion of Mexico are as a rule of very low stature, even to stuntedness. 1907 Edin. Rev. Oct. 439 The living organism within at last ceased struggling to extend itself, and stuntedly and pathetically took the shape prescribed. |