a. [f. STUNT a. + -Y.]
1. Stunted in growth, short in stature.
1828. H. Angelo, Remin., I. 287. Two stock-broker’s clerks, the one six feet two in height; the other, a stunty Jew, performed the parts of Pierre and Jaffier.
1868. Cleveland Gloss., Stunty, 1. Short in growth or stature; of Ling, or any other shrubby plant: of a person also, who is short in stature.
2. Sulky, obstinate; curt, blunt. dial.
a. 1825. [see STUNT a. 3].
1861. Agnes Strickland, Old Friends, Ser. II. 69. Their hoss … had kicked her own fetlock, and then she turned both lame and stunty (sulky stubborn).
Hence Stuntiness, the condition of being stunted.
Latham quotes from ‘Cheyne Philosophical Conjectures’ a passage identical with quot. 1740 s.v. STUNTEDNESS.
a. 1878. Sir G. Scott, Lect. Archit. (1879), II. 179. While walls and pillars might avail themselves to the full of this upward striving, it was hard that the arch should be condemned to unalterable stuntiness.
