Picture two things side by side, and one of them comes up short. A boy beside the tall players, a seedling beside the others in the tray, one bucket of water beside a burning roof. The small one is not just smaller; it looks as though it cannot hold, cannot push, cannot last. Puny is that second glance, the one where you see the size and then realise the strength is missing too. The comparison is almost always there, even when nobody says it out loud.
From the word’s history
Wiktionary records puny as a respelling of puisne, from Anglo-Norman puisné, that is puis (afterwards) plus né (born): the later-born one, hence the junior one. Coming second is the oldest layer, and coming up short is what the modern word kept.
根據 Wiktionary，puny 是 puisne 的另一種拼法，來自盎格魯諾曼語 puisné，也就是 puis（之後）加 né（出生），字面是「後出生的人」，引申為資歷比較淺的那一個。「排在後面」是最老的一層，而「比不上人家」就是現代這個字留下來的東西。
Wiktionary 'puny' etymology tree, supplied in this evidence packet (kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:759974682)
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