# runt

> English word · Noun · IPA /ɹʌnt/ · frequency rank #55,076

## Definitions
1. The smallest animal of a litter.
2. The smallest child in the family.
3. Undersized or stunted plant, animal or person.
4. An uninfluential or unimportant person; a nobody.
5. An Ethernet packet that does not meet the medium's minimum packet size of 64 bytes.
6. A single word (or portion of a hyphenated word) that appears as the last line of a paragraph.
7. A breed of pigeon related to the carrier pigeon.
8. A hardened stem or stalk of a plant.
9. A bow.

## Etymology
The OED classifies this word as "of obscure origin". Some see a connection to Middle Dutch runt (“ox”), but the OED considers this to be unlikely. Possibly connected to Icelandic hrotti meaning "brute".

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/runt