Definition:
1 capitalized : any of a small people of equatorial Africa ranging under five feet (1.5 meters) in height
2 : an unusually small person
About the Word:
You would be excused for finding yourself confused upon learning that the word pygmy comes from an Ancient Greek word for the distance measured from the elbow to the knuckles (pygmē). The word has a long history in the English language and none of its various uses have to do with elbows or knuckles.
Pygmy made its first appearance in English referencing a possibly mythical group of very small people, mentioned by writers in Ancient Greece. In the 16th century it began to be used to refer to people who are just very small, and in the 19th century it was used to refer specifically to diminutive people found in Africa's equatorial regions.
Example:
"The opinion that Pygmies are not a mere sport of Nature, but that they have representative claims as members of the great families of mankind, is as old as Homer, Hesiod, or the eternal hills." — Robin Goodfellow, A Weekly Journal of Fact and Fiction, 1861
