A boxer or wrestler in the lightest weight class, typically weighing around 118 pounds or less.
From 'bantam' (a small chicken breed from Bantam, Indonesia) + 'weight,' first used in boxing in the late 1800s to describe the smallest competing boxers, comparing them to tiny chickens.
Bantam chickens from a tiny Indonesian port town became so famous for their diminutive size that English speakers started calling anything small 'bantam' — and eventually the lightest boxers got the same nickname. It's wild how a chicken breed changed boxing terminology forever!
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