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''pygmy'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260708194133-00-⌔

pygmy - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

pygmy (plural pygmies)

  • (mythology, folklore) A member of various legendary races of dwarfs, or supernatural peoples of diminutive stature.
    • ✤ Here are little Apes, much reſembling men in their countenance, which they vſed to preſerue with certaine Spices, hauing flayed off their skinnes, and left the haire growing in thoſe parts, where Nature cauſeth men to bee hairie, and ſell them to Merchants, to be carried ouer the World as the bodies of little men; happily the only true Pygmies the World yeeldeth.1
    • ✤ Being desired by her to bring a present of gold, with which that region abounded, he stole, while at play with the king’s son, the golden ball with which he used to divert himself, and brought it to his mother in great haste; and when he reached the door of his father’s house, but not unpursued, and was entering it in a great hurry, his foot stumbled on the threshold, and, falling down into the room where his mother was sitting, the two Pygmies seized the ball, which had dropped from his hand, and departed, spitting at and deriding the boy.2
    • ✤ I’ve seen unicorns in Burma and a yeti in Nepal;/and I’ve danced with ten-foot Pygmies in a Montezuma Hall.3
    • ✤ Ctesias lived in Persia for several years, as the personal physician of King Ataxerxes II, and would have had contact with travellers to India, and Indian visitors to Persia. He describes dog-headed humans, pygmy men who grow their beards so long that they can be used as clothes, and affirms that it never rains in India.4
  • (often capitalized, dated, proscribed) A member of one of various tribal peoples of the Congo Basin in equatorial Africa, notable for their very short stature.
    • ✤ The dark negroid Pygmies (Negrittos) are found in the Belgian Congo and in the equatorial area.5
    • ✤ Although Pygmies are relatively protected against gene flow from other populations, many Pygmy tribes show extensive gene replacement and few have remained relatively unaltered.6
  • (often capitalized, dated, proscribed) Also applied to various other peoples of short stature.
    • ✤ As the Bushman folk are of low stature - the men from four feet six inches to four feet ten inches - they are classed as “Pygmies”.5
    • ✤ In Laos, half a world away, at the bottom of the heap are the Kha, a loose local term for a number of tribes of Indonesian stock who were the early inhabitants of the region, perhaps preceded by Astraloids, Melanesoids, and the Asian Pygmies called Negrites.7
  • (figuratively, derogatory, offensive) Any dwarfish person or thing; a disparaging term for a small person.
    • ✤ “Look, you little pygmy, I’m going to shove this dagger right through your chicken neck if you don’t tell us!”8
    • ✤ It was so high up that the people walking about in the street below looked like pygmies.9
  • (figuratively, derogatory, offensive) An insignificant person, at least in some respect.
    • ✤ On the world stage Germany is an economic giant but a political pygmy, Britain in comparison a political giant but an economic pygmy.10

Adjective

pygmy (comparative more pygmy, superlative most pygmy)

  • Relating or belonging to the Pygmy people.
  • Unusually short or small for its kind, especially in the names of animals and plants.
    • ✤ Amongst foodgrains, as we travelled from the green South and East towards the dry North and West, the pygmy crop of rice gave way to the tall bajra and jowar.11

Etymology

From Latin Pygmaeī, from Ancient Greek πυγμαῖος (pugmaîos, “a member of a legendary race of dwarves”), from πυγμή (pugmḗ, “fist (as small as a fist)”). In Ancient Greek, first mentioned by Homer; only applied to actual human races in the 19th century.

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈpɪɡmi/
  • Audio (US): 🔊

Printed 2026-07-08.

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Footnotes

  1. 1614, Samvel Pvrchas, Pvrchas his Pilgrimage, London: Henrie Fetherſtone, page 540: ↩

  2. 1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume II, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 405: ↩

  3. 1986, “I’ve Never Met a Nice South African”: ↩

  4. 2015, Sam Miller, A Strange Kind of Paradise: India through Foreign Eyes: ↩

  5. 1927, Donald A. Mackenzie, Footprints Of Early Man, London: The Gresham Publishing Company, page 176: ↩ ↩2

  6. 2018, Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, The History and Geography of Human Genes: ↩

  7. 1959, Oden Meeker, The Little World of Laos, New York: Charles Scrinber’s Sons, page 104: ↩

  8. 2008, Stephen Sparacio, Strawberries and Diamonds: An Ellis Island Mystery, Victoria, BC: Trafford, page 36: ↩

  9. 2015, Rosie Harris, Moving On: A family saga set in 1970’s Liverpool: ↩

  10. 2016, Hugh Miall, Beyond Deterrence: Britain, Germany and the New European Security Debate: ↩

  11. 1999, Ashok V. Desai, The Price of Onions, page 73: ↩