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Runt   Listen
noun
Runt  n.  (Written also rant)  
1.
(Zool.) Any animal which is unusually small, as compared with others of its kind; applied particularly to domestic animals.
2.
(Zool.) A variety of domestic pigeon, related to the barb and carrier.
3.
A dwarf; also, a mean, despicable, boorish person; used opprobriously. "Before I buy a bargain of such runts, I'll buy a college for bears, and live among 'em."
4.
The dead stump of a tree; also, the stem of a plant. (Obs. or Prov. Eng.) "Neither young poles nor old runts are durable."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Runt" Quotes from Famous Books



... "the Runt," helped himself to another flank steak. He was not much of a cow-hand, but when it came to eating Johnnie was always conscientiously on ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... dude)," answered Leandro in a loud voice, so that his sweetheart should hear. "He's at least fifty, and he comes around here trying to play the dashing young blade; that runt with the dyed moustache is Pepe el Federal (the Federalist), and the other is Eusebio el Carnicero (the Butcher), a fellow who owns quite a ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja

... not; and Fowler is why not; and that little Smith runt, and six or eight others. They are weak sisters. If you are going into a thing, go into it with the strong men. I wouldn't go with that crowd to a snake fight if it was twelve miles away. ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... "The runt of something good—that feller," Bruce added, with somber eyes. "I ought to pull out of here. It's no use, we can't hit ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... There was Colonel Clark on a runt of an Indian pony; Tom McChesney on another, riding ahead, several French gentlemen seated on stools in a two-wheeled cart, and myself. We were going to Cahokia, and it was very cold, and when the tireless wheels bumped from ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Museum. They will consist of large drawings of a Pouter, a Carrier, and rather smaller drawings of some sub-varieties (which breed nearly true) of short-faced Tumblers. Also a small drawing of Scanderoon, a kind of Runt, and a very remarkable breed. Also a book with very moderately good drawings of Fantail and Barb, but I very much doubt whether worth ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... pygmy, gnome, manikin, dandiprat, Lilliputian, elf, midget, runt, Tom Thumb, pigwidgeon, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... Luck, if you wasn't such a little runt I'd come up there and jest about lick the pants off you! Talk that way to ME, will ye? I'll have ye know I kin lead burros with you or any other dang man, heat er no heat Ef yuh ain't got no more heart'n to AST it ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower

... mentioned the carriage in which rode her Ladyship's chaplain, Mr. Runt, who acted in capacity of governor to her son, the little Viscount Bullingdon,—a melancholy deserted little boy, about whom his father was more than indifferent, and whom his mother never saw, except for two minutes at her levee, when she would put to him a few questions of history ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... "I was a regular runt before I begun," he said, "and look at me now. I got it from Peg Bowen. She's a witch, you know. I wouldn't go near her again for a bushel of magic seed. It was an awful experience. I haven't much ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... I suppose his real name is Thaddeus, or Tantalus, or something like it; I never knew, and I never liked him well enough to ask. Tank was a black-eyed little runt whom none of the boys liked, a grasping cuss, younger than Jim, and as selfish as Jim ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter

... childhood, was a slender, active, mischievous lad, and it will be a surprise to those who remember his superb physical manhood, to hear that at school and college he bore the nickname of "Runt." He was marked for his energy and vivacity. He was not precocious. Nature gave no signs of her intentions in his youth. His development, physical and mental, was not rapid, but wholesome. He was fond of horseback riding, and ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall

... in his soul he pitied her for being tied to such an insect. Immediately he was glad that she had spirit enough to put the little runt in his place. ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower

... some of the remarks which his appearance excited. "What! that little runt play the fiddle?" said one countrified young man, in a short-waisted blue coat, and tow-colored hair, plastered down on either side of his head with tallow. "I don't believe he can play any more ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger

... I becomes 'em mo'n w'at you does, 'kase my neck so long an' thin seem lak I needs 'em ter set hit off mo'n w'at you does wid dat shawt li'l neck er yo'n whar you keeps tuck 'way in yo' shell half de time, anyways. Sidesen dat, you is sech a runt dat you g'long draggin' de by'ud on de groun', an' fus' news you know hits 'bleeged ter be wo' out. You bes' lemme have hit, 'kase I kin ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various

... discouraged. We have some earnest men—yes, I believe, plenty of them; but they're not given a fair show. It'll all come right, though, I believe. Men with hearts in them; and Rosy, let me tell you, is no runt in that litter. ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong

... rot in the fields! I won't be bossed and blackguarded by any dirty little runt that thinks because he owns the only threshing outfit in the neighbourhood that he can run ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... his desk, grinning. Yardsticks. When he was a kid it had been just the other way around. He and the rest of them who didn't get shots in those early days considered themselves to be the normal ones. And they did the name-calling. Names like "runt" and "half-pint" and "midgie." But the most common name was the one that stuck—Yardstick. That used to be the worst insult ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch

... little following of hungry chicks, intent on one thing only, rushed quickly by, and the starveling dropped behind to gather strength for one more effort. Again it fails, a robuster bird has forced the pace, and again success is wanting to the runt. Sleepily it stands there, with half-shut eyes, in a torpor resulting from exhaustion, cold, and hunger, wondering perhaps what all the bustle round it means, a little dirty, dishevelled dot, in the race for life a failure, deserted ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... later he began to agitate the receiver hook and was eventually rewarded with the advice that the Knickerbocker operator, being informed his party was in the rest'runt, ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... only child"—("Blessed Father, think of him knowin' this!")—"and as you are well to do in the world, it's both a sin and a scandal for you to urge a pretty young girl of nineteen to marry an old miserly runt of fifty. You know now how to lay the ghost, Mrs. Houlaghan—and that is what I can do for you; but if you do not marry her to Brine Oge, as I said, another ghost will certainly contrive to haunt you. You may ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... Mac said he didn't have any further use for me—said I was too much of a runt to be liftin' and pullin' along with growed-up men. I came down ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... is studyin' medicine—and both of 'em boardin' with me. There's Abram and Albert is married, each workin' my farm for myself, And Sam smashed his nose at a shootin', and so he is laid on the shelf. The rest of the boys are all growin', 'cept this little runt, which is Jim, And I thought that perhaps I'd be makin' an editor outen ...
— Farm Ballads • Will Carleton

... heard of!" Happy Jack felt himself bewilderedly slipping from his loyalty. What had come over Jakie, to act like this? He walked away to where there was some shade and sat down sullenly. Jakie's servant, was he? Well! "The darned little greasy-faced runt," he mumbled rebelliously, and immediately felt ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower

... Pat fairly shot to his feet, and taking a forward step, hung over Big Tom, his green eyes black, his freckled face as crimson as his hair. "Runt is it!" he cried. "Runt! And I'll ask ye why, Mr. Tom Barber? Because ye've kept him shut up in this black place! Because ye've cheated him out o' decent food, and fresh air, and the flirtin' up o' his ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... always brings to mind the case of Dick Hodgkins, whom I knew when I was a young fellow, back in Missouri. Dickie was one of a family of twelve, who all ran a little small any way you sized them up, and he was the runt. Like most of these little fellows, when he came to match up for double harness, he picked out a six-footer, Kate Miggs. Used to call her Honeybunch, I remember, and she ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer

... little runt," Grim's voice boomed at him, "stop jumping around, and tie up this Mercutian. We have ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner

... ANNA's face, he suddenly changes his tone to one of boisterous joviality.] But I do be thinking, iver since the first look my eyes took at you, that it's a fool you are to be wasting yourself—a fine, handsome girl—on a stumpy runt of a man like that old Swede. There's too many strapping great lads on the sea would give their heart's blood for one kiss ...
— Anna Christie • Eugene O'Neill

... swimming tank. Mr. Crellin, the hog-manager, showed them Lady Isleton, who, with her prodigious, fat, recent progeny of eleven, won various nave encomiums, while Mr. Crellin warmly proclaimed at least four times, "And not a runt, not a runt, in ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... an hour, perhaps longer, Johnny dismissed the thousand-dollar-a-week job from his mind and waited with rising indignation for Bland. What had become of the darned little runt? Here it was nine o'clock, and no sign of him. The lobby was beginning to wear an atmosphere of sedate bustling to and fro. Johnny watched travelers arrive with their luggage, watched other travelers depart. Business men strayed in, seeking ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower

... minute the boy was after that dog, to try and take the goose away from him. He must have heard the goosey-gander call to him: "Have a care, Thumbietot! Have a care!" But the boy thought that such a little runt of a dog was nothing to be afraid of ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... his own horse out? Do you have to go to the stable with him? You never did have any sense about your actions with men. You've all along been too free of your reputation, and now I'm going to take care of it for you. I won't have you nursin' this runt ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland

... wasn't Hans, because I know him well, and he's a little runt of a Dutchman, but a fighter from the word go; and my father knows nobody's going to get away with those boxes of the professor while Hans and his musket, that was used in the Civil War, are on guard. That was a tall man, and he ran ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... compound interest through the eternal years—had his heart been as tender as his fear o' the world was large, or had he give way, by times, t' the kindness o' soul he was born with. A scrawny, pinch-lipped, mottled little runt of a Labrador skipper, his face all screwed up with peerin' for trouble in the mists beyond the waters o' the time: he was born here at Dirty-Face Bight, but sailed the Word o' the Lord out o' Rickity Tickle, in the days of his pride, when ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan

... dum ingenii laudem sectantur, non tam corrigere eum quam depravere maluerunt, aboleri praecepimus. Dat. III. Kalend. Octob. Const. Cons. et Crispi, (321.) Idem. Aug. ad Maximium Praef Praet. Universa, quae scriptura Pauli continentur, recepta auctoritate firmanda runt, et omni veneratione celebranda. Ideoque sententiarum libros plepissima luce et perfectissima elocutione et justissima juris ratione succinctos in judiciis prolatos valere minimie dubitatur. Dat. V. Kalend. Oct. Trovia Coust. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... Christi, et sanctus Petrus, et sanctus Paulus, atque sanctus Andreas, omnesque Christi apostoli, simul et caeteri discipuli, quatuor quoque evangelistae, qui sua praedicatione mundum universum converte- os runt. Maledicat illum cuneus martyrum et confessorum mirificus, qui Deo bonis operibus placitus inventus est. os Maledicant illum sacrarum virginum chori, quae mundi vana causa honoris Christi respuenda contempserunt. Male- os dicant illum omnes sancti qui ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... up; but he was grinnin' all over his face when he leaves us outside of No. 9 and goes in where the corks was poppin'. It must have been a happy thought, though; for it wa'n't long before he comes out, towin' a dried-up little old runt with a full set of face lambrequins and a gold dog license hung round his neck from a red ribbon. He had his napkin in one hand and half a dinner roll in the other; so it didn't look like he meant to make any long stop. He was actin' kind of dazed, too, like he hadn't got somethin' clear ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford

... was a failure. "Mike," who lived just back of our place, would come in at nights from his "Kerry cow," a scraggly runt that lived on the commons, with his pail so full he had to carry it cautiously lest it spill over. But after our full-blooded had been in clover to her eyes all day, Bridget would go out to the barnyard, and tug and pull for a supply ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... think that little runt of yours can kill ours, I guess we had better let them fight it out." "All right," said ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson

... tastes are diff'runt, I'm not settin' up myself As the judge an' final critic of the good things on the shelf. I'm sort o' payin' tribute to a simple joy on earth, Sort o' feebly testifyin' to its lasting charm an' worth, An' I'll hold to this conclusion till it comes my ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest

... put them there," I denied hastily, "except that he was a pale little runt of a German, pretending to be a thief, who will wish he had died young if I ever see ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... notion I'm scared of Albeen, Joe," he explained. "No one-armed, hammered-down little runt can bluff me for a second. When I'm good an' ready I'll settle with him, but I'm not goin' to wreck this business we're ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine

... are!" the emancipated servant said. "I ha' seen a sight o' bad 'uns, but never one like you. And if I was th' master, I'd up and chuck you inter th' street, see if I wouldn't, and git a little peace in 'is 'ome with a diff'runt woman than you! 'E wouldn't have to go far, neither, before 'e found one to 'is mind, master wouldn't, an' so I tell you! An' as for me, I'm done with ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... likely shote give to him one year, but it turned out a runt, he fed it so queer. The critter seemed allus squealin' for something to eat, an' my Charles ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long

... "he may. . . . A Luger's a mighty diff'runt kind av a gun tu other authomatics . . . an' th' man that shot Larry Blake ain't likely tu be fule enough tu risk packin' ut around—for a chance tu thrip um ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall

... with what he chose to serve us. But there were speculations by some as to whether or not Scotty really served us all the grub given him by the quartermaster's department, and someone was so unjust, I thought, as to venture the suggestion that he believed "the damned Scotch runt is selling the grub to men in other units." "How does it happen," said he, in support of his suspicion, "that he always has a little change when the ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant

... Buck, still in his crooning tones, taking the big sheriff by the elbow and gently propelling him toward the door, "now as to this yere criminal over toward Grant's Pass, he was a little bit of a runt about six foot three tall; heavy set, weight about a hundred and ten; light complected with black hair and eyes. You can't help but find him. Tom's a good sort," he observed, coming back, "but he's ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... wiggled my fingers, and handed him the joyful gaze, heliographing with my teeth as though I was glad to see visitors. However, I wondered if that runt would really give my chilblains a treat. He looked like a West Pointer, and I didn't know but he'd try to ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach

... farmer one day, as he leaned over the top of the pen, to look down on the pigs, after he had poured their dinner into the trough. "Hum! That little pig, with the squinty eye, is getting pretty big. I thought he was going to be a little runt, but he seems to be growing as fast ...
— Squinty the Comical Pig - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum

... divided,—Aesop the slave and the Athenians,—must be read as an appoggiatura, or hurried note of introduction flying forward as if on wings to descend with the fury and weight of a thousand orchestras upon the immortal passion of the second line—"Servumque collocrunt ETERNA IN BASI." This passage from Phaedrus, which might be briefly designated The Apotheosis of the Slave, gave to me my first grand and jubilant sense of ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... no sawed-off, hammered-down runt like Texas, No, siree! Miss Messiter's on the absent list 'cause she's afraid she cayn't resist the blandishments of Soapy. Did yo' ever hear about Soapy ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... the gab!" he said. He tossed his coat aside and skimmed his cap after it. "Come on, you runt, and ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour

... shocked and felt also the impropriety of the thing. The idea of being lugged off like a baby was embarrassing, even in the presence of the one who had deliberately put him in his present condition. Bateese did the thing with such beastly ease. It was as if he was no more than a small boy, a runt with no weight whatever, and Bateese was a man. He would have preferred to stagger along on his own feet or creep on his hands and knees, and he grunted as much to Bateese on the way to the canoe. He felt, at the same time, that the situation owed him something more of discussion and explanation. ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood

... head. He's all blather about his rights an' his wrongs. Th' other moornin' didn't I try to get on his bus from the wrong side o' the crossin', an' he bawls at me: 'Th' other side! Th' other side! Yuh're no better than any one ilse!' An' I had to chase through the mud after him! The little wizened runt! He's talkin' like an arnachist! An' that's why he smashed me dish. He'll have no one say 'No' to 'im.... Ah, Mrs. Byrne, niver marry a man ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... at you. Napoleon was a runt, I've heard tell. But it was comical, you stickin' yore head up through the hay thataway. I'll stand pat on that, an' I ain't a-going to fight about ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine

... to hurt the count, and as she spoke broken English dad could understand her, and she looked so beautiful, and her eyes were filled with tears, and dad relented and said: "Don't cry, dear, I won't hurt the little runt." She was so glad dad was not going to kill the count that she threw herself into his arms and thanked dear America for producing such a grand citizen, such a brave man as dad, who could forego the pleasure of killing a poor, weak man who had insulted ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck

... seven children. At first his mother thought she would call him "Runty." But she soon changed her mind about that; for she discovered that even if he was the runt of the family, he had the loudest grunt of all. So the good lady made haste to slip a G in front of the ...
— The Tale of Grunty Pig - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... him in hot blankets. By and by he come to. An' then I found that the Perfessor, gettin' over the barb-wire fence so quick (when he lit for the pond) had torn a hole in his leg you could put four fingers in. There was his trouser all stiff with blood, an' he not sayin' a thing. Pluckiest little runt in three States, by Judas! Well, we put him to bed, too, and then the Missus keeled over, an' we put her to bed. Three of them, by time the Doc got here. Great old summer afternoon that was! But bless your heart, we couldn't keep the Perfessor ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley

... is likely to exclaim, thinking of a swarthy Sappho, a fat Chaucer, a bald Shakespeare, a runt Pope, a club-footed Byron, and so on, almost ad infinitum. Would not a survey of notable geniuses rather indicate that the poet's dreams arise because he is like the sensitive plant of Shelley's ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... not do it jest now," the Cap'n returned, sweetly. "I've got something more important to talk about than stumpage. Money and business ain't much in this world, after all, when you come to know there's something diff'runt. Love is what I'm referrin' to. Word has jest come to me that you're in love, too, the same ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... fun in the sunlight, though?" declared the little "runt," who had been nicknamed "Elephant" by his chums, possibly in a spirit of boyish humor, and which name had clung to ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy

... the runt Beany, staring fascinated at her legs. "'Cept we're taking da monster wit' us. Real expensive, them monsters. Drinkos, they're called. Dey get lost in da dimensions now and then. Picked one up on Pluto fifty years or so ...
— Sorry: Wrong Dimension • Ross Rocklynne

... ut testimonium quo, te praeside, Oxonienses nomen meum posteris commendrunt, quali animo acceperim compertum faciam. Nemo sibi placens non laetatur[977]; nemo sibi non placet, qui vobis, literarum arbitris, placere potuit. Hoc tamen habet incommodi tantum beneficium, quod mihi nunquam posthc sine vestrae famae detrimento vel labi liceat vel cessare; semperque sit ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... them think there was nae rowth o' vivers whaur they never wer sent awa empty-haunded afore. I aye keepit my he'rt up wi' the notion that him doon-bye the coat belangs to wad hae made a match o't, and saved us a' frae beggary. But there's an end o' that, sorry am I. And sorry may you be; ye auld runt, to hear't, for he's been the guid enough friend to me; and there wad never hae been the Red Sodger Tavern for us if it wasnae for his interest in a man that has ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... "He hasn't glimpsed us, and, luckily enough, our horses are feeding out of sight just now. Doesn't he look sleepy and tuckered out though? See him nodding in his saddle, poor little runt! Oh! what's that moving there among those rocks ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson

... duck's tail, and tickle your funny ribs with three dozen of the best. Understand?" The Captain paused, trembling with rage. "Understand, hey, you '—' little barnstorming son of a '—'? Made a mistake, have I? Cut your capers at my expense, would you, you little baldheaded runt? By '—' if you pull another face at me, sir, you shall caper off the yardarm, sir; on a string, sir; high as Haman, sir! I hope, sir," wound up Captain Crang, recovering his calm, "that on this point, at any rate, I have left no room ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... had had a dispute, when Mike in contempt said: "Ye little runt, Oi bet I could carry yez up to the fifth ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher

... Russ," the big man complimented. "For a little sawed-off runt, you're real spry and active." He clucked to the mules and they settled steadily into the collars and moved on to the Three Bar. As they rolled up the lane the freighters could see the chuck wagon drawn up before the house, the remuda milling round the big pasture lot and ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts

... into which he had stuck a sharpened match as a visible means of support, a boy who was probably not so old as he looked sat upon the curbstone at the corner, and claimed the world for his cuspidor. He was an ill-favored runt of a boy, with a sedate manner and a face ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison



Words linked to "Runt" :   half-pint, shrimp, peewee, runty



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