midget

From midge (chiefly in the figurative sense of “small thing”, literally “small fly”) + -et (diminutive suffix), (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”)).

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɪd͡ʒɪt/
• Rhymes: -ɪdʒɪt

• Audio (US):

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midget (plural midgets)

1. (sometimes derogatory) A very small thing; especially one which is conspicuously smaller than expected or by comparison. [from early 19th c.]

   Antonym: giant

   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.

2. (chiefly Canada, US, now rare) Alternative form of midge (“small fly”) [from early 19th c.]
3. (derogatory, offensive) A short person. [from later 19th c.]

   Synonyms: dwarf, short-ass / short-arse, shortie / shorty, titch, munchkin

   Antonym: giant

   • 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.

4. (attributively, derogatory) Something for use by a small person; especially something designed or made for one.

   Synonyms: dwarf, munchkin, elf

• Generally considered derogatory, even when describing something other than a person.^[1]

• (a small person): manikin, homunculus, pygmy, lilliputian

• Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “midget”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.