small and delicate; "she was an elfin creature--graceful and delicate"; "obsessed by things elfin and small"
suggestive of an elf in strangeness and otherworldliness; "thunderbolts quivered with elfin flares of heat lightning"; "the fey quality was there, the ability to see the moon at midday"- John Mason Brown
usually good-naturedly mischievous; "perpetrated a practical joke with elfin delight"; "elvish tricks"
relating to or made or done by or as if by an elf; "elfin bells"; "all the little creatures joined in the elfin dance"
reduced in efficacy or vitality or intensity; "our shriveled receipts during the storm"; "as the project wore on she found her enthusiasm shriveled"; "the dollar's shrunken buying power"
lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness; "the old woman's shriveled skin"; "he looked shriveled and ill"; "a shrunken old man"; "a lanky scarecrow of a man with withered face and lantern jaws"-W.F.Starkie; "he did well despite his withered arm"; "a wizened little man with frizzy grey hair"