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Mighty vs Puny - What's the difference?

mighty | puny |

As nouns the difference between mighty and puny

is that mighty is influential, powerful beings while puny is a new pupil at a school etc.; a junior student.

As adjectives the difference between mighty and puny

is that mighty is very strong; possessing might while puny is of inferior size, strength or significance.

As an adverb mighty

is very; to a high degree.

mighty

English

Noun

(en-plural noun)
  • Influential, powerful beings.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist), author=Lexington
    • , title= Keeping the mighty honest , passage=British journalists shun complete respectability, feeling a duty to be ready to savage the mighty', or rummage through their bins. Elsewhere in Europe, government contracts and subsidies ensure that press barons will only defy the ' mighty so far.}}

    Noun

    (mighties)
  • (obsolete, rare) A warrior of great strength and courage.
  • * Bible , 1 Chronicles 11:12, King James Version:
    • And after him was Eleazar the son of Dodo, the Ahohite, who was one of the three mighties .

    Adjective

    (er)
  • Very strong; possessing might.
    • He's a mighty wrestler, but you are faster than him.
  • * Bible, Job ix. 4
    • Wise in heart, and mighty in strength.
  • Very heavy and powerful.
    • Thor swung his mighty hammer.
    He gave the ball a mighty hit.
  • Accomplished by might; hence, extraordinary; wonderful.
  • * Bible, Matthew xi. 20
    • His mighty works
  • * Hawthorne
    • Mighty was their fuss about little matters.
  • (informal) Excellent, extremely good.
    • Tonight's a mighty opportunity to have a party.
    She's a mighty cook.

    Derived terms

    * high and mighty

    Adverb

    (-)
  • (colloquial) Very; to a high degree.
    • You can leave that food in your locker for the weekend, but it's going to smell mighty bad when you come back on Monday.
    Pork chops boiled with turnip greens makes a mighty fine meal.
  • * Samuel Pepys
    • The lady is not heard of, and the King mighty angry and the Lord sent to the Tower.
  • * 1918 , (Edgar Rice Burroughs), Chapter IV
    • I was mighty glad that our entrance into the interior of Caprona had been inside a submarine rather than in any other form of vessel. I could readily understand how it might have been that Caprona had been invaded in the past by venturesome navigators without word of it ever reaching the outside world, for I can assure you that only by submarine could man pass up that great sluggish river, alive.

    Related terms

    * might * almighty * mightiness

    Statistics

    * English degree adverbs

    puny

    English

    Noun

    (punies)
  • (obsolete) A new pupil at a school etc.; a junior student.
  • (obsolete) A younger person.
  • *, II.12:
    • a law that the eldest or first borne child shall succeed and inherit all: where nothing at all is reserved for Punies , but obedience.
  • (obsolete) A beginner, a novice.
    • (Fuller)
  • (archaic) An inferior person; a subordinate.

    • Adjective

    (er)
  • Of inferior size, strength or significance.
  • * Shakespeare
    • A puny subject strikes at thy great glory.
  • * Keble
    • Breezes laugh to scorn our puny speed.

    Synonyms

    * See also

    See also

    * punny – relating to a pun ----