different between dwarf vs dwarves

English

Etymology

From Middle English dwerf, dwergh, dwerw, dwer?, from Old English dweorh, dweorg (“dwarf”), from Proto-West Germanic *dwerg, from Proto-Germanic *dwergaz.

Cognate with Scots dwerch; Old High German twerc (German Zwerg); Old Norse dvergr (Swedish dvärg); Old Frisian dwirg (West Frisian dwerch); Middle Low German dwerch, dwarch, twerg (German Low German Dwarg, Dwarch); Middle Dutch dwerch, dworch (Dutch dwerg).

The Modern English noun has undergone complex phonetic changes. The form dwarf is the regular continuation of Old English dweorg, but the plural dweorgas would have given rise to dwarrows and the oblique stem dweorge- would have led to dwery. These forms are sometimes found as the nominative singular in Middle English texts and in English dialects. A parallel case is that of Old English burg giving burgh, borough, burrow, bury.

Pronunciation

• (General American) enPR: dwôrf, IPA^(key): /dw??f/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /dw??f/
• Rhymes: -??(?)f

Noun

dwarf (plural dwarfs or dwarves)

1. (mythology) 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.
2. (now often offensive) A person of short stature, often one whose limbs are disproportionately small in relation to the body as compared with normal adults, usually as the result of a genetic condition.

   Synonyms: midget, pygmy (imprecise)

   Antonyms: ettin, giant

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

   Synonym: runt

4. (astronomy) A star of relatively small size.

Usage notes

At first, dwarfs was the common plural in English. After J. R. R. Tolkien used dwarves in his works, that form became the standard for the plural of the mythological beings. For a non-mythological dwarf (people with dwarfism, small plants, animals, planets, stars, etc.), dwarfs has remained the preferred plural form. The use of dwarf to describe people with short statures is presently considered to be offensive.

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

dwarf (comparative dwarfer, superlative dwarfest)

1. (especially in botany) Miniature.

Translations

Verb

dwarf (third-person singular simple present dwarfs, present participle dwarfing, simple past and past participle dwarfed)

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

   Synonyms: miniaturize, shrink

2. (transitive) To make appear (much) smaller, puny, tiny.
3. (transitive) To make appear insignificant.

   Synonyms: eclipse, overshadow, outshadow, outshine, outdo, put to shame, upstage, surpass, outmatch, outstrip

4. (intransitive) To become (much) smaller.

   Synonym: shrink

5. 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

   • 1881, John Campbell Shairp, Aspects of Poetry

Translations

Further reading

• Dwarf on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

English

Noun

dwarves

1. plural of dwarf
   • 1842, George Webbe Dasent (trans.), The Prose Or Younger Edda Commonly Ascribed to Snorri Sturluson, page 8

     Then said Þriði: They took also his skull and made thereof heaven and set it up over the earth with four sides, and under each corner they set dwarves: they hight thus Austri, Vestri, Norþri, Suþri.

   • 1854, Barclay Pennock (trans.), Rudolph Keyser, The Religion of the Northmen, page 299

     The belief in Dwarves as inhabitants of the interior of the earth and especially of large isolated rocks, was likewise a direct offshoot of the Asa-Mythology.

   • 2001, Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman, Well of Darkness, HarperCollinsPublishers, page 139

     When the human magi arrived, Dunner was the dwarf responsible for arbitrating between them and the dwarves as to location and the hundreds of other minor quibbles that seemed likely to turn into major battles, owing to simple misunderstandings of each other's ways.

Anagrams

• swarved