midget

Elaine Landau (Short Stature: From Folklore to Fact) says, "Due to the negative images connected to this term, the word 'midget' is no longer used to describe people with this body type" (a very short person whose heads and limbs are proportional for his or her body). The organization in the U.S. for short-statured people is called the Little People of America. Terms like "mental midget" and "moral midget," while not reflecting directly on little people, indirectly disparage them. See also dwarf, short.