Other forms: dwarfs, dwarves, dwarfed, dwarfing
A dwarf is a short, broad, immensely strong being out of northern legend, happiest underground with a hammer and a seam of ore. The seven who take Snow White in, the bearded company marching through a fantasy novel, the smith who forges a king's sword in a cave.
The plural is dwarfs in most writing and dwarves in fantasy, where Tolkien's spelling took hold. Dwarf is also a verb: one thing dwarfs another when it makes it look tiny beside it, so the new block dwarfs the church. Put in front of a noun it means small for its kind — a dwarf apple tree in a pot, a white dwarf star. There is one more meaning, for a person of unusually short stature caused by a medical condition, and that use offends many people today; the plain way to say it now is a person with dwarfism.
1noundwarfIn legend and fantasy, a short, powerfully built being who lives underground and is famous for mining and metalwork.
“In the story a dwarf forges the ring that the whole quest turns on.”
synonyms: gnome
2verblookTo make something look small beside it.
“The new terminal dwarfs the old one next to it.”
3adjectivenounSmall for its kind — used before a noun, of plants and of stars.
“She planted a dwarf apple tree that never grew above her shoulder.”
4noununusuallyA person of unusually short stature, especially from a medical condition — a use many people find offensive today.
“Older books use dwarf where writers now say a person with dwarfism.”
dwarf is a creature of legend.
Dwarf is one of the oldest words in English: Middle English dwergh, Old English dweorg, and behind those Proto-West Germanic *dwerg and Proto-Germanic *dwergaz. Every branch of Germanic kept a version of it — Scots droich, Old High German twerc. The creature had a name for a thousand years before anyone wrote the fairy tales down.
Middle English
dwergh
English, today
dwarf
From Middle English dwergh. From Middle English dwergh, dwerw, dwerf, from Old English dweorg, from Proto-West Germanic dwerg, from Proto-Germanic dwergaz. Cognate with Scots droich, dwerch (“dwarf, midget”); Old High German twerc (German -, {{cog|lb|
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Myths & Legends, Fairy Tales & Folklore