dwarfing

Pluraldwarfings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of dwarf.

   The cruise ship docked beside the fishing boats, dwarfing them completely.

   Her recent success is dwarfing anything her rivals have achieved.

   Note

   Most uses carry an object, the thing that ends up looking small beside something bigger: the ship was dwarfing the fishing boats. The same form covers stunting, as in dwarfing a tree in a pot, where the thing is really kept small rather than only made to look it. Only the use meaning to shrink stands with no object at all.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The situation in which something is made to look small or unimportant by comparison.

   The film's deliberate dwarfing of its hero against vast landscapes makes him seem lost.

   The steady dwarfing of the smaller parties by the two giants left voters with little real choice.

   Note

   The noun takes of before its object, where the verb form takes it directly: the film's dwarfing of its hero, but the film keeps dwarfing its hero. It can also be counted: A Modernist Cinema speaks of intentional dwarfings of the human figure, each able to carry its own political charge depending on the work that frames it.

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