dwarf

Any member of a race of beings from (especially Scandinavian and other Germanic) folklore, usually depicted as having some sort of supernatural powers and being skilled in crafting and metalworking, often as short with long beards, and sometimes as clashing with elves.

• [T]he elf king and his queen made a royal progress every noon with a splendid retinue of dwarves and sprites, […]
• Nidavellir, which is sometimes called Svartalfheim, where the dwarfs (who are also known as dark elves) live beneath the mountains and build their remarkable creations.

A person of short stature, often one whose limbs are disproportionately small in relation to the body as compared with typical adults, usually as the result of a genetic condition.offensivesometimes

• The nurse exclaimed it when I finally arrived, a month late (a habit I have kept). That's how my parents found out that I was a little person, a dwarf, of short stature.

An animal, plant or other thing much smaller than the usual of its sort.

• dwarf tree
• dwarf honeysuckle

A dwarf star.

• But none of those brown dwarfs were speeding along on a trajectory that would carry them out of the galaxy like “runaway” hypervelocity stars observed by astronomers in the last two decades. […] The study team said it’s likely the star was

Miniature.especially

• The specimen is a very dwarf form of the plant.
• It is possible to grow the plants as dwarf as one desires.

To render (much) smaller, turn into a dwarf (version).transitive

To make appear (much) smaller, puny, tiny; to be much larger than.transitive

• The newly-built skyscraper dwarfs all older buildings in the downtown skyline.

To make appear insignificant.transitive

• Bach dwarfs all other composers.

To become (much) smaller.intransitive

To hinder from growing to the natural size; to make or keep small; to stunt.

• At present the whole sex is in a manner dwarfed and shrunk - into a race of beauties that seems almost another species
• Even the most common moral ideas and affections […] would be stunted and dwarfed, if cut off from a spiritual background.