Dictionary

dwarfess en · NOUN

Pronunciation

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Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *dwergaz Proto-West Germanic *dwerg Old English dweorg Middle English dwergh English dwarf Proto-Indo-European *-is Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-ih₂der. Ancient Greek -ῐᾰ (-ĭă) Ancient Greek -ισσα (-issa)bor. Late Latin -issader. Old French -essebor. Middle English -esse English -ess English dwarfess From dwarf + -ess.

Meanings

1. (dated) A human female dwarf.
   • Gibson and his wife were among the best English-born artists of their era. He was just three feet six inches in height; she was a dwarfess of the same proportion. This little couple had nine good-sized children, and having weathered the storms of civil war, lived happily together to old age. 1847, Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England, volume XIII, page 247:
   • Beside him stood a dwarfess, even smaller than he was, snub-nosed and doll-faced. 1980, Lilli Palmer, A Time to Embrace, page 201:
   • “I have no idea what they will do with it,” he [Vladimir Nabokov] said. “Of course they will have to change the plot. Perhaps they will make Lolita a dwarfess. Or they will make her 16 and Humbert 26. I just don’t know. It’s difficult to translate a book into a movie.” 1958 November 24, “Ithaca and 'Lolita'”, in Newsweek, page 155:
2. A female of the dwarf race.
   • 1990, Tanith Lee, “White As Sin, Now”, in Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (editors), The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Third Annual Collection, St. Martin's Press, 0-312-04450-X, page 328, Heracty has been told that the flaxen dwarfess once had an adventure in the mock forest below the Palace.
   • She was a silver-haired, rather portly dwarfess...and the most powerful enchantress in Ilsdale, if not in the known world. 2004, James Haberlin, Brian Haberlin, But, But...Barbarians?, page 207:
   • Opening the door, I immediately see a stout dwarfess, probably the owner, behind a counter and a group of young cat-people girls in aprons serving food and alcohol to customers. 2014, Fujino Omori, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, volume 1, page 51:

Forms

Synonyms

dwarrowdam · dwarfmaid · dwarfette · dwarfette