Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use puny in a sentence

18 example sentences · adjective, noun

Puny means of inferior significance, size, or strength; ineffective, small, weak. Example: “You puny earthlings are no match for Ming the Merciless!”

Examples of puny by meaning

adjectiveOf inferior significance, size, or strength; ineffective, small, weak.

  • You puny earthlings are no match for Ming the Merciless!
  • a puny attempt at an apology

More sentences with puny

  • That was quite a build-up for such a puny punch line.From the entry punch line
  • George, known among Kerala Christians as the Saint Geevarghese, slays a puny and pathetic dragon.2015 October 30, M.T. Ansari, Islam and Nationalism in India: South Indian contexts, Routledge, →ISBN. From the entry Geevarghese
  • The three twos look puny against light-fingered Tucker's kings, but Johnny's still in the pot.2011, Warren Bull, Murder Manhattan Style, Untreed Reads, →ISBN, page 40. From the entry Huey, Dewey and Louie
  • And even those two were pretty puny, like Superman after he had been kryptonited.1998, Phillip Gwynne, Deadly Unna?, Melbourne: Penguin, page 173. From the entry kryptonite
  • “I left you for dead on that hillside and those puny little manthings would never help one of our kind.”2005, Ed Greenwood, James M. Ward, Jeff Grubb, We Three Dragons: A Trio of Dragon Tales for the Holiday Season. From the entry manthing
  • He called mutants Homo Superiors to underscore the difference between mutants and the rest of mankind—puny Homo sapiens.2000 August, Walter Mosley, “Extreme Fan”, in Vibe, volume 8, number 6, page 84. From the entry Homo Superiors
  • Methodist Bishop Hicks condemned the presumptuousness of Bibliolatry: that puny man limits God's power to the dimensions of the human mind.1996 May, Betty McCollister, “Creation ‘science’ vs. religious attitudes”, in USA Today, volume 124, number 2612, page 74. From the entry bibliolatry
  • But there is no place for grand gestures but there's a basic contempt for women in this puny, constipated drama.1977, New West, volume 2, numbers 21-26, page 96. From the entry constipated
  • They'd like me to back their puny Puseyism.1959 April 22, Walt Kelly, Pogo, comic strip, →ISBN, page 34. From the entry Puseyism
  • A pilly and puny vacation he spent.1954, The Louisville & Nashville Employes' Magazine - Volume 30, page 62. From the entry pilly
  • Widow Toad: Looks kinds puny to me.1943, Vera Morris, transl., Thumbelina, Denver, Colorado: Pioneer Drama Service, page 9. From the entry ribbit
  • For instance instead of puny ordinary Dyson spheres, Brin gives us fractal Dyson spheres to maximise the surface area for their trillions of inhabitants.1999, Gary Wilkinson, Heaven's Reach review, Vector, Number 207, September/October 1999, page 21. From the entry sensawunda
  • One has the feeling that these devouring industrial dinosaurs, wreathed in cruel gusts of steam like Moloch, grind out collarbuttons or something equally puny.1927 March 7, The New York Telegram; quoted in Stanley Kauffmann and Bruce Henstell, editors, American Film Criticism: From the Beginnings…. From the entry collarbutton
  • Omnipresent but obscure, family owned but by no means puny, Beckhoff is among thousands of “hidden champions” that account for much of Germany's prowess as a manufacturer and exporter.2012 April 14, “What Germany offers the world”, in The Economist. From the entry hidden champion
  • Yet I must not violate the sense of our Aphorism by pretending for even a moment that this puny seizure of alphabetitis is peculiar to our own time.1965, Robert K. Merton, On the Shoulders of Giants. From the entry alphabetitis
  • For Eugene O’Neill the sea is usually the constant symbol of these eternal realities, the inhuman powers of nature against which men and women must measure their puny strength.1921, The Independent 1921-12-03: Volume 106, Issue 3794, Open Court Publishing Company, page 147. From the entry inhuman

Meaning of puny

  1. adjective Of inferior significance, size, or strength; ineffective, small, weak.
  2. adjective (Frequently) ill; poorly, sickly.
  3. adjective Inferior in rank; specifically, of a judge: junior.

Full definition of puny

Questions about puny in a sentence

How do you use puny in a sentence?
Puny is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “You puny earthlings are no match for Ming the Merciless!”
What is a short sentence with puny?
“a puny attempt at an apology”
What does puny mean?
Puny means of inferior significance, size, or strength; ineffective, small, weak.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: puny (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use puny in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/puny. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.