thickness

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English

Thickness gauge
Measuring the thickness of a guitar pick with calipers. The measured thickness is 2.0 mm.

Etymology

From Middle English thikkenesse, thiknesse, from Old English þicnes (“thickness, viscosity, density, hardness; obscurity, cloud, darkness; thicket; depth, a thick body, anything thick or heavy”), from Proto-West Germanic *þikkwīnassī (“thickness”), equivalent to thick +‎ -ness. Cognate with West Frisian tsjokkens (“thickness”), Old High German dickinessī, dikkinissi, diknissi (“thickness, density”). Eclipsed non-native Middle English crassitude (“thickness”) from Latin crassitūdō (“thickness”).

Pronunciation

Noun

thickness (countable and uncountable, plural thicknesses)

  1. (uncountable) The property of being thick (in dimension).
  2. (uncountable, countable) A measure of how thick (in dimension) something is.
    The thickness of the Earth's crust varies from two to 70 kilometres.
    Guitar picks come in different thicknesses.
  3. (countable) A layer.
    We upholstered the seat with three thicknesses of cloth to make it more comfortable to sit on.
  4. (uncountable) The quality of being thick (in consistency).
    Whip the cream until it reaches a good thickness.
  5. (uncountable, informal) The property of being thick (slow to understand).
  6. (graph theory, countable) The minimum number of planar subgraphs which a given graph can decompose into.

Synonyms

Antonyms

Derived terms

Translations

layer — see layer

Verb

thickness (third-person singular simple present thicknesses, present participle thicknessing, simple past and past participle thicknessed)

  1. (transitive) To trim (wood) to a consistent thickness using a thickness planer.
    • 2003, Garrett Hack, The Handplane Book, page 143:
      Even if the parts are thicknessed by machine, check for and plane out any cup with a bench plane.

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