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Runt

Webopedia Staff
Last Updated May 24, 2021 7:54 am
When used in reference to networks, a runt is a packet that is too small to traverse the network. Network protocols such as Ethernet often require that packets be a minimum number of bytes in order to travel the network. Runts are often the result of packet collisions along a busy network or can result from faulty hardware that is forming the packets or from corrupted data being sent across the network.

Also see giant.