1
chiefly Scotland
: a hardened stalk or stem of a plant
2
: an animal unusually small of its kind
especially
: the smallest of a litter of pigs
3
usually disparaging
: a person of small stature
Examples of runt in a Sentence
the runt of the litter
one kitten was definitely the runt, weighing only six ounces at birth
Recent Examples on the Web
Imagine a second straight year of Bama righting the season by beating Georgia — and then immediately losing to the SEC's longtime runt.
—
Jason Kirk, New York Times, 2 Oct. 2025
The first rescue comes just hours after his birth, when a justice-minded little girl named Fern Arable (Natalie Chan) intervenes to keep her farmer dad (a rather stiff Tom Everett Scott) from killing the runt he figures will never amount to anything.
—Angie Han, HollywoodReporter, 1 Oct. 2025
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Jason Kirk, New York Times, 2 Oct. 2025
The first rescue comes just hours after his birth, when a justice-minded little girl named Fern Arable (Natalie Chan) intervenes to keep her farmer dad (a rather stiff Tom Everett Scott) from killing the runt he figures will never amount to anything.
—Angie Han, HollywoodReporter, 1 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Runt.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/runt. Accessed 29 Oct. 2025.
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