dwarf

dwarf n Dwarf, pygmy, midget, manikin, homunculus, runt are comparable when they mean an individual and usually a person of diminutive size.

Dwarf is the general term not only for a human being but for any animal or plant that is definitely below the normal size of its kind; often the term suggests stunted development

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his [the fool's] value was trebled in the eyes of the king by the fact of his being also a dwarf and a cripple— Poe

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Pygmy originally was applied to one of a race of fabled dwarfs mentioned by Homer and others; now it is used especially of one of a people of small stature found in central Africa. In general application the term carries a stronger connotation of diminutiveness and a weaker suggestion of arrested development than dwarf, when used in reference to a person, it often implies relative tininess, sometimes in body but more often in intellect

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to him all the men I ever knew were pygmies. He was an intellectual giant— Byron

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Midget stresses abnormal diminutiveness but, unlike dwarf carries little suggestion of malformation or deformity; the term is applied usually to a tiny but otherwise more or less normally shaped person exhibited in a circus or employed in place of a child in theatrical performances

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P. T. Barnum's famous midget, Tom Thumb

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Manikin is often applied not only to a dwarf but to any human being who for one reason or another seems despicably small or weak

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can it be fancied that Deity ever vindictively made in his image a manikin merely to madden it?— Poe

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Often it suggests an animated doll

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a bright-eyed little manikin, naked like all his people— Forester

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Homunculus usually suggests even greater diminutiveness and often greater perfection in form than midget; it is the specific term for an exceedingly small artificial human being such as was supposedly developed by Paracelsus, a famous Renaissance alchemist.

Runt, usually a contemptuous designation, applies to a dwarf or undersized person, especially to one who is conspicuously puny or undeveloped

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I always did admire a good, sizable, stout man. I hate a runt— McClure's Mag.

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The term is also applied to an animal, especially a domestic animal, small of its kind; and it is used specifically of the undersized one of a litter (as of pigs)