thin
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /θɪn/
note: th-fronting
ipa: /fɪn/
rhymes: -ɪn
homophone: fin (th-fronting)
Forms: form: thinner
form: thinnest
Etymology: From Middle English thinne, thünne, thenne, from Old English þynne, from Proto-West Germanic *þunnī, from Proto-Germanic *þunnuz (“thin”) – compare *þanjaną (“to stretch, spread out”) – from Proto-Indo-European *ténh₂us (“thin”), from *ten- (“to stretch”).
Cognate with German dünn, Dutch dun, West Frisian tin, Icelandic þunnur, Danish tynd, Swedish tunn, Latin tenuis, Irish tanaí, Welsh tenau, Latvian tievs, Polish cienki, Russian тонкий (tonkij), Sanskrit तनु (tanú, “thin”), Persian تنگ (tang, “narrow”). Doublet of tenuis. Also related to tenuous.
Senses: examples: text: thin plate of metal; thin paper; thin board; thin covering
text: It was no mystery at all, or a mystery covered only with the thinnest and most transparent veil, that forced abortion is a common practice among Turkish women. The horrible secret as to the means and the drugs to be employed is pretty generally known, and where ignorance prevails there are "wise women," old hags, professional abortists, who go about the country relieving matrons of their burthens for a few piastres apiece […]
ref: 1853, Charles MacFarlane, Kismet: or, The doom of Turkey, page 66:
text: Out of spite, the human beings pretended not to believe that it was Snowball who had destroyed the windmill: they said that it had fallen down because the walls were too thin.
ref: 1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm […], London: Secker & Warburg, published May 1962, →OCLC:
text: The newest form of gold created in a lab is the thickness of two atoms, according to a new study. It’s only 0.47 nanometers thick, which is one million times thinner than a human finger nail. […] This makes it the thinnest unsupported gold ever created and it could be used in electronics and medical devices going forward.
The gold is made up of two layers of atoms stacked on top of each other. But don’t let the thin structure fool you.
ref: 2019 August 6, Ashley Strickland, “Scientists just created the world’s thinnest gold and it’s two atoms thick”, in CNN:
glosses: Having little thickness or extent from one surface to its opposite.
examples: text: thin wire; thin string
text: Typically, osteoporosis causes the amount of trabecular bone to be reduced and the bone to become thinner, while the intertrabecular space enlarges and the interconnected structure of trabecular bone is disrupted.
ref: 2015 July 6, “Assessment of the Impact of Zoledronic Acid on Ovariectomized Osteoporosis Model Using Micro-CT Scanning”, in PLOS ONE, →DOI:
synonyms: twiggy
glosses: Very narrow in all diameters; having a cross section that is small in all directions.
examples: text: thin person
glosses: Having little body fat or flesh; slim; slender; lean; gaunt.
examples: text: Water is thinner than honey.
glosses: Of low viscosity or low specific gravity.
examples: text: The trees of a forest are thin; the corn or grass is thin.
text: Ferrara is very large, but extremely thin of people.
ref: 1705, J[oseph] Addison, Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, &c. in the Years 1701, 1702, 1703, London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
glosses: Scarce; not close, crowded, or numerous; not filling the space.
topics: golf
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: Describing a poorly played golf shot where the ball is struck by the bottom part of the club head. See fat, shank, toe.
examples: text: a thin, tight-lipped smile
text: thin, hollow sounds, and lamentable screams
ref: 1690, [John] Dryden, Don Sebastian, King of Portugal: […], London: […] Jo. Hindmarsh, […], →OCLC, (please specify the page number):
glosses: Lacking body or volume; small; feeble; not full.
examples: text: a thin disguise
glosses: Slight; small; slender; flimsy; superficial; inadequate; not sufficient for a covering.
examples: text: In short, we previously found that thin routes benefit from an increase in competition in the Spanish airline market when considering routes that were monopoly routes in 2001.
ref: 2016, Hartmut Wolf, Peter Forsyth, David Gillen, Liberalization in Aviation, page 105:
topics: aeronautics
aerospace
aviation
business
engineering
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
glosses: Of a route: relatively little used.
examples: text: Like their friends the "draggers," the "hoisters" or shoplifters are having a thin time these days, […]
ref: 1945, Jack Henry, What Price Crime?, page 92:
glosses: Poor; scanty; without money or success.
Synonyms: sense: having little thickness from one surface to its opposite
word: narrow
word: narrow
sense: very narrow in all diameters
word: fine
sense: having little body fat or flesh
word: reedy
word: skinny
word: slender
word: slim
word: svelte
word: waifish
word: scrawny
sense: of low viscosity
word: runny
word: watery
word: runny
sense: not close or crowded
word: spaced out
word: sparse
word: diffuse
sense: not numerous
word: scant
sense: not numerous
word: scarce
sense: not numerous
word: slight
Derived terms: gossamer-thin
have a thin time of it
into thin air
on thin ice
out of thin air
paper-thin
pencil-thin
razor-thin
razor thin
run thin
skate on thin ice
spread oneself thin
spread oneself too thin
stick-thin
stretch thin
thick and thin
thick-and-thin block
thin air
thin as a barber's cat
thin as a rail
thin as a rake
thin as a wafer
thin as a yard of pump water
thin-bladed
thin blue line
thinclad
thin client
thin computing
thin content
thin-crust pizza
thin edge of the wedge
thin end of the wedge
thin-film
thin film
thin-layer chromatography
thin layer chromatography
thinly
thin on the ground
thin paper
thin sandwich course
thin sandwich degree
thin section
thin skin
thin-skinned
thin-skinnedness
thin skull rule
thin slice
thin-slice
thin-slicing
thin space
thinspiration
thin the herd
thin trading
through thick and thin
wafer-thin
wear thin
Related terms: thinness