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midget

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Etymology

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Diminutive of midge (from Old English myċġ (“mosquito”), from Proto-Germanic *mugjō, from Proto-Indo-European *mus-, *mu-, *mew-; cognate with Dutch mug (“mosquito”) and German Mücke (“midge, gnat”)), using the suffix -et, originally (1865) for a "little sand fly", only around 1869 also a "very small person".

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈmɪd͡ʒɪt/
  • Rhymes: -ɪdʒɪt
  • Audio (US):(file)

Noun

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Portrait of Sebastián de Morra (c. 1645) by Diego Velázquez. The subject of the painting, a midget or dwarf, was a jester at the court of Philip IV of Spain.

midget (plural midgets)

  1. (originally) A little sandfly.
    Although tiny and just two-winged, midgets can bite you till you itch all over your unprotected skin.
  2. (loosely) Any small swarming insect similar to the mosquito; a midge.
  3. (sometimes offensive) A normally-proportioned person with small stature, usually defined as reaching an adult height less than 4'10". [from later 19th c.]
  4. (sometimes offensive) Any short person.
    • 1930, Walter de la Mare, Poems for Children, London: Constable & Co., →OCLC, page xxix; republished in “[The Children’s Bookshop] Children and Childhood”, in Henry Seidel Canby, editor, The Saturday Review of Literature, volume VII, number 9, New York, N.Y.: Saturday Review Associates, 1930 September 20, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 151, column 2:
      They [children] realize their oughts no less sharply than their crosses; and this even though they are midgets in a land of giants who have forgotten much of their language and whose right is often founded solely on force majeure.
  5. (attributively, now sometimes offensive) A small version of something; miniature.
    the midget pony
    • 1949, Douglas Reed, Somewhere South of Suez: A Further Survey of the Grand Design of the Twentieth Century, page 48:
      By using a midget, skin-tight car of the kind made in Italy the Johannesburger might save himself much tribulation, but he likes large and glittering things, and would rather toil round his city in vain search of a place to put his supercharged, supergrinning Mammalac than use a baby car.

Usage notes

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  • Used for an insect, this is a variation on midge that is commonly used.
  • Use of this word may be considered offensive, even when describing something other than a person.[1]

Synonyms

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Antonyms

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  • (antonym(s) of “derogatory: any small person”): giant
  • (antonym(s) of “miniature”): giant

Hyponyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

References

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  1. ^ Patrick Sawer (2022 January 12) “Midget Gems renamed after claims name is hateful towards people with dwarfism”, in The Telegraph, retrieved 14 October 2023
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