Stunted

ppl. a. [f. STUNT v.¹ + -ED¹.]

  1.  Checked in growth or development; of growth, checked, arrested. Hence: diminutive, dwarf.

1719.  London & Wise, Compl. Gard., p. xi. It can never be pleasing to see a stunted Tree.

1727.  Pope, Macer, 11. Like stunted hide-bound Trees.

1776.  Adam Smith, W. N., I. I. xi. 234. That stunted breed [of cattle] which was common all over Scotland.

1821.  Scott, Kenilw., ix. A queer, shambling, ill-made urchin, who, by his stunted growth, seemed about twelve or thirteen years old.

1826.  T. Jefferson, Writ. (1830), IV. 427. The long succession of years of stunted crops.

1833.  Q. Rev., XLIX. 407. Precocity of intellect in a stunted frame, is the grand desideratum in a Newmarket nursery.

1868.  Darwin, Anim. & Pl., I. iii. 78. These pigs on the Paramos are small and stunted.

1875.  C. C. Blake, Zool., 21. The innermost digit is often stunted or absent.

1890.  Hardwicke’s Science-Gossip, XXVI. 141/1. The florets at apex opened first and the lower ones last … which gave the flower a stunted appearance.

  b.  of immaterial things.

1658.  F. Osborn, Mem. Eliz. & James, Epist. A 3. Scholars, who think it a sufficient excuse in the justification of a stunted Knowledge, to maintain an impossibility of transcending the Abilities of former Ages.

1864.  Tennyson, Aylmer’s F., 357. I lived for years a stunted sunless life.

1911.  W. W. Fowler, Relig. Exper. Roman People, xii. 287. The old State religion remained, but in stunted form, and with paralysed vitality.

  2.  Of a thing: Shortened; † worn down (obs.); also, disproportionately or abnormally short.

1716.  Gay, Trivia, II. 91. When waggish boys the stunted beesom ply To rid the slabby pavement.

c. 1844.  Rossetti, Bürger’s Lenore, Note (MS.), I have retained the German version … thinking it more suited to the metre than the lengthy English word ‘Leonora,’ and by far less unpleasing to the ear than the stunted and ugly abbreviation ‘Leonor.’

1845.  Ecclesiologist, IV. 89. A stunted chancel is affixed.

1898.  C. Hyne, Through Arctic Lapland, ii. 24. He mounted on the stem-head of his steamer a stunted heavy-breeched gun.

  b.  In the names of animals or plants, the individuals of which are diminutive in form.

1827.  Griffith, trans. Cuvier, V. 38. Simia Jacchus Vulgaris (the Stunted Monkey or Jacchus).

1848.  C. A. Johns, Week at Lizard, 271. Stunted Ox-eye Daisy.

1889.  Maiden, Usef. Pl. Australia, 397. Casuarina distyla … ‘Stunted She-oak.’

  Hence Stuntedly adv.; Stuntedness.

1740.  Cheyne, Regimen, 66. The Stuntedness, Punyness and Feebleness, so conspicuous among the better Sort.

1864.  Sala, in Daily Tel., 15 Aug., 5/4, note. The pure Indians I have seen in the southern portion of Mexico are as a rule of very low stature, even to stuntedness.

1907.  Edin. Rev., Oct., 439. The living organism within at last ceased struggling to extend itself, and stuntedly and pathetically took the shape prescribed.