2 entries under this word
a. [compar. PUNIER; superl. PUNIEST.] [Fr. puîné. See PUISNE.] Imperfectly developed in size or vigor; small and feeble; inferior; petty. “Such puny mortals as themselves.” South.
“A puny subject Strikes at thy great glory.” Shak.
n. A young, inexperienced person; a novice; an inferior. He had rather others should make a ladder of his dead corpse, to scale a city by it, than a bridge of him whilst alive, for his punies to give him the go-by, and pass over him to preferment. Fuller.