different between dwarfish vs tiny

English

Etymology

dwarf +? -ish

Adjective

dwarfish (comparative more dwarfish, superlative most dwarfish)

1. Like a dwarf; being especially small or stunted.
   • c. 1605, William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, Scene 2, [1]

     […] now does he feel his title / Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe / Upon a dwarfish thief.

   • 1757, Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, Section XXIV, in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, London: John C. Nimmo, 1887, Volume I, p. 242, [2]

     Besides the extraordinary great in every species, the opposite to this, the dwarfish and diminutive, ought to be considered. Littleness, merely as such, has nothing contrary to the idea of beauty.

   • 1843, Edgar Allan Poe, "The Gold-Bug" [3]

     The vegetation, as might be supposed, is scant, or at least dwarfish.
2. Of, pertaining to, or made by or for dwarves.

   Dwarfish axes are some of the finest weapons available.

Translations

English

Alternative forms

• tyny (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English tine, tyne (“very small”) + -y. Perhaps from tine.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ta?ni/

• Rhymes: -a?ni

Adjective

tiny (comparative tinier, superlative tiniest)

1. Very small.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:tiny

Antonyms

• huge
• great

Derived terms

• tininess
• tinily

Translations

Noun

tiny (plural tinies)

1. A small child; an infant.
   • 1924, Ford Madox Ford, Some Do Not…, Penguin 2012 (Parade's End), p. 28:

     ‘You know I loved your husband like a brother, and you know I've loved you and Sylvia ever since she was a tiny.’

   • 1982, Young children in China (page 84)

     The lessons we saw have been well suited to the age of the children as regards music, singing and moving (and stories about animals for the tinies and more abstract themes for the older children).

2. Anything very small.

Translations

Anagrams

• tiyn