puny

adj

1. Of inferior significance, size, or strength; ineffective, small, weak.

   “You puny earthlings are no match for Ming the Merciless!”

   “I had forgot my ſelfe, am I not King? […] Is not the Kings name twenty thouſand names? / Arme arme, my name a puny ſubiect ſtrikes, / At thy great glorie, […]”

   “And twentie of theſe punie lies Ile tell, / That men ſhall ſweare I haue diſcontinued ſchoole / About a twelue moneth: […]”

   “How ſhould puny ſcribblers be abaſhed and diſappointed, when they find him diſplaying a perfect theory of lexicographical excellence, yet at the ſame time candidly and modeſtly allowing that he "had not ſatisfied his own expectations."”

   “[W]e dart / O'er wave or field: yet breezes laugh to scorn // Our puny speed, […]”

2. (Southern-US)(Frequently) ill; poorly, sickly.
3. (obsolete)Alternative spelling of puisne.

   “Gadsbodkins, you puny Upſtart in the Law, to uſe me ſo, you Green Bag Carrier, you Murderer of unfortunate Cauſes, the Clerks Ink is ſcarce off of your fingers, you that newly come from Lamblacking the Judges ſhooes, and are not fit to wipe mine; […]”

   “WHEN John firſt brought out the Bills, the Surprize of all the Family was unexpreſſible, at the prodigious Dimenſions of them; […] Fees to Judges, puny Judges, Clerks, Prothonotories, Philizers, Chirographers, Underclerks, Proclamators, Counſel, Witneſſes, Jury-men, Marſhals, Tipſtaffs, Cryers, Porters; […]”

   “But if you think this Trade to baſe, / (Which ſeldom is the Dunce's Caſe) / Put on the Critick's Brow, and ſit / At Wills the puny Judge of Wit.”

   “Many thought that he had altogether cut his own throat, and that he would have to take the first "puny" judgeship vacant.”

4. (obsolete)Alternative spelling of puisne.
5. (obsolete)Alternative spelling of puisne.

noun

1. (archaic)An inferior person; a subordinate; also, an insignificant person.

   “·”

   “·”

   “[T]hou chuff, thou puny, thou got in the peasestraw thou losel, thou chitterling, thou spawn of a rebel, thou dykedropt, […]”

2. (obsolete)A younger person; a junior.

   “[A] law that the eldeſt or firſt-borne child ſhall ſucceede and inherite all: where nothing is reſerved for punies, but obedience: […] Theſe vaine ſhadowes of our religion, which are ſeene in ſome of theſe examples, witnes the dignitie and divinity thereof.”

   “For a worthy man is wounded more deeply by his own Generalls neglect, then by his enemies ſword: […] Who had rather others ſhould make a ladder of his dead corps to ſcale a city by it, then a bridge of him whileſt alive for his punies to give him the Goe-by, and paſſe over him to preferment.”

3. (obsolete)Alternative spelling of puisne.

   “Nay then I ſee thou'rt but a puny in the ſubtill Miſtery of a woman: […]”

4. (obsolete)Alternative spelling of puisne.
5. (obsolete)A new student at a school, university, the Inns of Court, etc.; a junior.

   “[T]he whole companye or most parte of the Studentꝭ [Studentis] of the same house mette toogether to beginne their Christmas, of wᶜʰ som̃e came to see sports […] others to make sporte wᵗʰall of this last sorte were they whome they call Fresh-menn Punies of the first yeare, who are by no meanes admitted to be agent's or behoulders of those sports, before themselues haue biñe patient perfourmers of them.”