pygmy

Other forms: pygmies

A member of an ethnic group whose people tend to be very short or small is a pygmy. Anthropologists sometimes study pygmy groups.

The term pygmy, while still used by many who study and write about world cultures and groups, is somewhat old-fashioned and can be offensive to members of these cultures. Anthropologists often refer to groups in which men are on average shorter than four feet eleven inches tall as pygmies, though for the most part these people prefer to be known by their ethnicity. Pygmy comes from the Greek word pugmaios, or "dwarf."

Definitions of pygmy

1. noun

   an unusually small individual
   synonyms: pigmy

   type of:

   small person

   a person of below average size