thin

English

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, Sanskrit तनु (tanú, “thin”), Persian تنگ (tang, “narrow”). Doublet of tenuis. Also related to tenuous.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /θɪn/
• (th-fronting) IPA^(key): /fɪn/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪn
• Homophone: fin (with th-fronting)

Adjective

thin (comparative thinner, superlative thinnest)

1. Having little thickness or extent from one surface to its opposite.

   thin plate of metal;  thin paper;  thin board;  thin covering

   • 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:

     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.

2. Very narrow in all diameters; having a cross section that is small in all directions.

   thin wire; thin string

3. Having little body fat or flesh; slim; slender; lean; gaunt.

   thin person

4. Of low viscosity or low specific gravity.

   Water is thinner than honey.

5. Scarce; not close, crowded, or numerous; not filling the space.

   The trees of a forest are thin; the corn or grass is thin.

   • 1705, J[oseph] Addison, Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, &c. in the Years 1701, 1702, 1703, London: Jacob Tonson, , →OCLC:

     Ferrara is very large, but extremely thin of people.

6. (golf) Describing a poorly played golf shot where the ball is struck by the bottom part of the club head. See fat, shank, toe.
7. Lacking body or volume; small; feeble; not full.

   a thin, tight-lipped smile

   • 1690, [John] Dryden, Don Sebastian, King of Portugal: , London: Jo. Hindmarsh, , →OCLC, (please specify the page number):

     thin, hollow sounds, and lamentable screams

8. Slight; small; slender; flimsy; superficial; inadequate; not sufficient for a covering.

   a thin disguise

9. (aviation) Of a route: relatively little used.
   • 2016, Hartmut Wolf, Peter Forsyth, David Gillen, Liberalization in Aviation, page 105:

     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.

10. Poor; scanty; without money or success.
    • 1945, Jack Henry, What Price Crime?, page 92:

      Like their friends the "draggers," the "hoisters" or shoplifters are having a thin time these days, […]

Synonyms

• (having little thickness from one surface to its opposite): narrow; see also Thesaurus:narrow
• (very narrow in all diameters): fine
• (having little body fat or flesh): reedy, skinny, slender, slim, svelte, waifish; see also Thesaurus:slender or Thesaurus:scrawny
• (of low viscosity): runny, watery; see also Thesaurus:runny
• (not close or crowded): spaced out, sparse; see also Thesaurus:diffuse
• (not numerous): scant, scarce, slight

Antonyms

• thick

Derived terms

Related terms

• thinness

Translations

Noun

thin (plural thins)

1. (philately) A loss or tearing of paper from the back of a stamp, although not sufficient to create a complete hole.
2. Any food produced or served in thin slices.

   chocolate mint thins

   potato thins

   wheat thins

Translations

Verb

thin (third-person singular simple present thins, present participle thinning, simple past and past participle thinned)

1. (transitive) To make thin or thinner.
   • 1941, Theodore Roethke, “Feud”, in Open House; republished in The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke, 1975, →ISBN, page 4:

     Exhausted fathers thinned the blood,
     You curse the legacy of pain;
     Darling of an infected brood,
     You feel disaster climb the vein.

2. (intransitive) To become thin or thinner.

   The crowds thinned after the procession had passed: there was nothing more to see.

3. To dilute.
4. To remove some plants or parts of plants in order to improve the growth of what remains.
   • 2015 September 5, Mark Diacono, “In praise of the Asian pear”, in The Daily Telegraph (Gardening)‎, archived from the original on 12 September 2015, page 3:

     So floriferous are Asian pears, and the tree so laden with young fruit, that as the tree approaches maturity it is worth considering thinning the fruit (I can't quite bring myself to thin the flowers) so as to neither overburden the tree for this year nor tire it for the next. Thinning early in the season, while the fruit is small, is ideal.

Derived terms

• thin out

Translations

Adverb

thin (comparative more thin, superlative most thin)

1. Not thickly or closely; in a scattered state.

   seed sown thin

   • a. 1627 (date written), Francis [Bacon], “Considerations Touching a VVarre vvith Spaine. ”, in William Rawley, editor, Certaine Miscellany VVorks of the Right Honourable Francis Lo. Verulam, Viscount S. Alban. , London: I. Hauiland for Humphrey Robinson, , published 1629, →OCLC:

     Spain is a nation thin sown of people.

Further reading

• “thin”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “thin”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “thin”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

• Nith, hint

Middle English

Etymology 1

Determiner

thin (subjective pronoun þou)

1. Alternative form of þin (“thy”)

Pronoun

thin (subjective þou)

1. Alternative form of þin (“thine”)

Etymology 2

Adjective

thin

1. Alternative form of thinne (“thin”)

Old Dutch

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *þīn.

Determiner

thīn

1. thy, your (singular)
2. thine, yours

Inflection

Descendants

• Middle Dutch: dijn
  • Dutch: dijn
  • Limburgish: dien

Further reading

• “thīn”, in Oudnederlands Woordenboek, 2012

Old High German

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ðiːn/

Determiner

thīn

1. Alternative form of din

References

1. Joseph Wright, An Old High German Primer, Second Edition

Old Saxon

Etymology 1

From Proto-West Germanic *þīn.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /θiːn/
• (late Old Saxon) IPA^(key):

Determiner

thīn

1. thy, your (singular)
2. thine, yours

Declension

See also

References

• Köbler, Gerhard, Altsächsisches Wörterbuch (5th edition 2014)

1. Altsächsisches Elementarbuch by Dr. F. Holthausen

Etymology 2

See here.

Determiner

thin

1. instrumental singular masculine/neuter of thē

Welsh

Noun

thin

1. Aspirate mutation of tin.

Mutation