[Darmani]

Adjectives such as "short" only make sense used relatively. For example, Napoleon Bonaparte is of average height relative to early 19th-century France, and short relative to 21st century France.

Similarly, with 63 pages worth of text, compared to the average web page, this link is extremely long, but, compared to the average programming-related book, this link is extremely short.

[pg]

I think Napoleon was short for his time. At least, contemporaries spoke of him as short.

[Darmani]

Interesting. I checked Wikipedia again, and apparently the issue of Napoleon's height is in dispute.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_Bonaparte#Napoleon.27s...

"Many historians have recently argued that, contrary to popular belief, Napoleon was not short as often depicted in popular culture. Although historians disagree on Napoleon's precise height, it has been suggested that he was actually slightly taller than the average early 19th-century Frenchman.[27] Some historians claim the French emperor's height was recorded as 5 ft. 2 in French units, corresponding to 1.68 meters or 5 ft. 6 in Imperial units."

[david]

I remember reading that the officials he was surrounded with were mostly taller than he was, so he looked short relative to tall people.