Word.ws English Dictionary

puniest

puniest is the superlative form of puny.

Meaning of puny

Adjective

puny (comparative punier, superlative puniest)

  1. Of inferior significance, size, or strength; ineffective, small, weak.
    • You puny earthlings are no match for Ming the Merciless!
  2. (Southern US, south Midland US) (Frequently) ill; poorly, sickly.
  3. (obsolete) Inferior in rank; specifically, of a judge: junior.
    • Gadsbodkins, you puny Upſtart in the Law, to uſe me ſo, you Green Bag Carrier, you Murderer of unfortunate Cauſes, the Clerks Ink is ſcarce off of your fingers, you that newly come from Lamblacking the Judges ſhooes, and are not fit to wipe mine; […]1676 December 11 (first performance), [William] Wycherley, The Plain-Dealer. A Comedy. […], London: […] T[homas] N[ewcomb] for James Magnes and Rich[ard] Bentley […], published 1677, →OCLC, Act III...
  4. (obsolete) Coming later in time; secondary, subsequent.
  5. (obsolete) Not experienced; novice.

See all 10 meanings of puny

Questions about puniest

What is puniest the superlative form of?
Puniest is the superlative form of puny.

Words near puniest in the dictionary

  1. punicoside
  2. punicosides
  3. Punics
  4. punier
  5. punies
  6. puniest
  7. puniglandin
  8. punily
  9. punim
  10. punims
  11. puniness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: puniest (page history and authors); puny (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “puniest.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/puniest. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.