the.com/runt
The smallest sibling, built by nature to prove size was never the point.
means The smallest or weakest individual in a litter or group, sometimes stretched to describe a small, undersized person.
from First shows up in the 1500s as a word for an old or decayed tree stump, then drifted toward meaning anything stunted or undersized — eventually settling on the smallest piglet or puppy in a litter. Nobody's fully certain where the stump sense itself came from, so the deeper roots stay genuinely murky.
- origin
- from old word for stunted livestock
- biology
- often last to nurse, first to hustle
- irony
- runts frequently outlive their bigger littermates
- usage shift
- insult that became oddly affectionate