Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A very small person.
- n. Informal A child.
- n. Informal A minor official.
Wiktionary
- n. informal A child.
- n. informal A person of very short stature.
- n. One of the fictional inhabitants of Munchkin Country in the Oz books by L. Frank Baum, who are portrayed as a race of very short people in the 1939 film adaptation The Wizard of Oz.
- n. gaming A player who concentrates solely on increasing his character's power and capabilities.
- n. A domestic cat breed.
Etymologies
- Coined by L. Frank Baum in "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." Perhaps reflective of munch (“=mensch?”) + -kin. (Wiktionary)
- After the Munchkins, characters in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The first words out of the good witches mouth after the wicked witch disappears in munchkin land in a ball of red smoke.”
“I said I was happy to play a board game or something though so we played a game called munchkin (I think) the rules of which were a bit of mystery to me and hence I lost - though I did get to be an elf with a very long sword and have a chicken on my head (though apparently the chicken thing was a curse adn bad).”
“The concept of me arriving for a conference without my happy little packages of notes and cards, without handling the arrangements for my beloved munchkin, is absurd.”
“The next munchkin is due in February and hopefully we’ll find out if it is another he or a she in the next fortnight (we seriously do not have the patience not to know these kind of things …) - I’m heading over to the UK and the US from October 9 with the better half and munchkin #1.”
“The munchkin is a breed of cat known for its noticeably short legs.”
“Dunkin' Donuts is a munchkin next to McDonald's, which has more than 14,000 restaurants in the U.S. and had $24 billion in 2010 revenue.”
“I remember very clearly the first time I laid eyes on his little munchkin face.”
The Huffington Post: Leon Logothetis: Travels With Winston Churchill
“Next time: A scary pregnant munchkin bride who yells at everyone!”
“Yet that pales compared to the multiverse of identities she assumes in her latest one-woman show: a long suffering spouse in "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man," a munchkin on Swing Street in "Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead," and a victim of the TSA on "You Forgot Your Gloves" a bit of topicality from 1931.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘munchkin’.
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A taste for small things
Diminutives
screamlet, pip, purrlet, mannikin, nipperkin, munchkin, dodkin, elfkin, bootikin, dudeen, boreen, jackeen and 40 more...
-
Let Me Call You Sweetheart
Or honey, or baby, or ...
(A Valentine's Day list.)amoret, bonnilasse, ladybird, leikin, leman, love-lass, Phyllis, pout, sweetness, munchkin, darling, sayang and 87 more...
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Affectionate names you call your kids
peanut, pickle, jelly bean, babby, babs, cutie-head, sweetlie, treasure, cutie, monkey, noodles, monkey-noodles and 21 more...
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Kalli's Words
redundant, munchkin, escapade, natch, boom, fap, geek, nocturnal, pedantic, tactile, conversant, oxymoron and 188 more...
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the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
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Fictional beasties
elf, gnome, dwarf, sprite, troll, fairy, nymph, imp, brownie, sasquatch, yeti, wookiee and 574 more...
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How do you like Kipling?
Words which fit the joke format: "How do you like X-in(g)? I don't know, I've never X-ed".
kipling, duckling, fingerling, groundling, chickling, chitterling, changeling, gosling, yearling, hireling, inkling, quisling and 98 more...
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uncleosbert's Words
omphalaskepsis, gravid, steatopygian, marmalade, triffid, scurrilous, kith, lilliputian, slunk, snailular, milquetoast, elephantine and 191 more...
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arby's words
me default
shirty, kerfuffle, tenterhooks, susurrus, palimpsest, crimson, rufous, cicatrix, crepuscular, carapace, quaff, exanimate and 239 more...
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heather's Words
kleptocracy, aberrant, tawdry, insipid, noggin, obfuscate, dream, esoteric, hijinks, mischevious, nefarious, rapscallion and 184 more...
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logicalbiscotti's omniglottery
i heart words.
lolligag, defenestrate, dammsuga, kakumei, in cahoots, spleen, hubris, epoch, anaphylaxis, lummox, tincture, schadenfreude and 156 more...
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Words I rather dislike
Those words that I have no place for in my new world order.
meal, sippy cup, clinically, kibbles, cox, mixed, corn, simple, supper, example, texts, munchkin and 3 more...
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eureka!!
favourite amusing words and phrases
There is at least..., eureka, dharma, fufluns, tubular, carbuncle, spanakopita, mojo, cake or death, negative space, sweet tooth fairy, floweth and 26 more...
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"My Little _____"
Endearments too cute and/or funny to ignore.
chickpea, piglet, mon chi chi, gummi bear, poochie, sweetpea, stud muffin, sweetcakes, fuckbunny, chubchub, pookie, snugger and 38 more...
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End in -kin
You heard it here first. Well, maybe not first, but you heard it here. Well, maybe not "heard," but read. You read it here. At some point.
gherkin, merkin, firkin, malkin, pumpkin, bumpkin, pipkin, bodkin, napkin, mannikin, pigskin, sealskin and 83 more...
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brin1d2lynn's list
Dooflobbie
Thingamajig
Hootendibbler
Whatchamacallit
Trifling
Mullish
Obstreperous
Impudent
Insolent
Crabby
Cranky
Idiocy
Hul...chagrinery, vexsome, irksome, carbuncle, cantankerous, splendiferous, odious, perfidious, parsimonious, pandemonium, mayhem, erstwhile and 59 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for munchkin.
lampbane Do I at least get a box of Munchkins™ as a consolation prize? Aug 29, 2008
crunchysaviour Lampbane, you just lost the Game. Aug 29, 2008
lampbane Munchkin is also a term for a role-playing gamer who is more interested in exploiting the rules, making their character as powerful as possible, and "winning the game" than they are in actually playing a role.
There is no winning in role-playing games. There is merely dead or not dead. Aug 28, 2008
plethora Er.. *shifty eyes* I may not have actually been in Italy. There's a Carnevale festival here every year, but this is South Australia, so perhaps it's not the most authentic Italian cuisine... But the bloke selling them was a first generation Italian immigrant. I knew his wife, so he used to sometimes just give me random food. It was quite good.
They weren't quite like that Pro, they were just long sticks. I am beginning to get the suspicion that Dom just made them up. Aug 27, 2008
Prolagus Plethora, which part of Italy did you visit for Carnevale? Because frisjoli longhi are a typical Carnival treat in Sardinia... Aug 27, 2008
chained_bear Well, okay, more for the rest of us then. :) Aug 27, 2008
crunchysaviour Thanks, CB, but I looked at the site and saw the box with "MUNCHKINS" in big letters and it put me right off. I could never eat these. I concede defeat! Aug 27, 2008
chained_bear They come in several varieties, crunch, and you can mix and match when you buy them by the dozen. Aug 27, 2008
crunchysaviour If it's cheaper and tastes the same, then I can see how the doughnut hole would be superior.
Do they come with cinnamon sugar? Aug 27, 2008
plethora As long as it tastes good, who cares if it's a doughnut or a donut hole??
Personally, I like these long Italian doughnut-sort-of things that I had at Carnivale a few years ago. I can't remember what they're called though. Maybe Pro can help out? Aug 27, 2008
bilby The holes are cheaper. Aug 27, 2008
chained_bear Yes, they're doughnuts... when they're not made by Dunkin' Donuts. Aug 26, 2008
crunchysaviour Donuts, no thanks; doughnuts, yes, please! ;)
My point is, why have the hole when you can have the doughnuts? Aug 26, 2008
chained_bear What? Who doesn't like donuts?! *shakes head* Aug 25, 2008
crunchysaviour We do not have Dunkin' Donuts in the UK, nor in Australia... and I daresay that if I were familiar with these things, I would be so infuriated that they were not the actual doughnuts themselves that I would probably hate the word EVEN MORE!!!!
I am glad it has a use, though. Aug 25, 2008
chained_bear Crunchysaviour, are you familiar with the little round "donut holes" marketed under this name by Dunkin' Donuts? They're the only reason I think this word is useful. :) Aug 24, 2008
plethora I like this word because it reminds me of The Wizard of Oz.
I think I need to create an Oz list, actually. It's pretty much consuming my brain at the moment, and will continue to do so until I've finished school. Aug 24, 2008
crunchysaviour What a simpering, infuriating word. If munchkin was a stick, I would break it in half, stamp on it and set fire to it. Aug 24, 2008