pigmy

Multiple Entries:
  pigmy    pygmy  

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
pigmy

▶noun variant spelling of pygmy.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
pygmy /ˈpɪɡmi/ (also pigmy)

▶noun (pl. pygmies)

• 1 (Pygmy) a member of certain peoples of very short stature in equatorial Africa or parts of SE Asia.

• 2 chiefly derogatory a very small person or thing.

• 3 a person who is deficient in a particular respect: an intellectual pygmy.

▶adjective very small; dwarf.

– derivatives
pygmean adjective (archaic).

– origin ME (orig. denoting a mythological race of small people): via L. from Gk pugmaios ‘dwarf’, from pugmē ‘the length measured from elbow to knuckles’.