thin

Etymology

From Middle English thinne, thünne, thenne, from Old English þynne, from Proto-Germanic *þunnuz (“thin”) – compare *þanjaną (“to stretch, spread out”) – from Proto-Indo-European *ténh₂us (“thin”), from Proto-Indo-European *ten- (“to stretch”). Cognate with Danish tynd (“thin”), Dutch dun (“thin”), Elfdalian tunn (“thin”), Faroese tunnur (“thin”), German dünn (“thin”), Icelandic þunnur (“thin”), Luxembourgish dënn (“thin”), Norwegian tynn (“thin”), Swedish tunn (“thin”), Vilamovian dynn (“thin”), West Frisian tin (“thin”). Related to Breton tanav (“thin”), Cornish tanow (“thin”), Irish tanaí (“thin”), Latin tenuis (“thin”), Latvian tievs (“thin”), Manx thanney (“thin”), Persian تنگ‎ (tang, “narrow”) Sanskrit तनु (tanu, “thin”) Scottish Gaelic tana (“thin”), Welsh tenau (“thin”). Also related to tenuous.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈθɪn/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪn

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

   • 1945 August 17, George Orwell, chapter 7, in Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, London: Secker & Warburg, OCLC 3655473:

     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, e.g., as is water compared to 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.

   • Addison

     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.
   • Dryden

     thin, hollow sounds, and lamentable screams

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

   a thin disguise

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

Verb

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

1. (transitive) To make thin or thinner.
2. (intransitive) To become thin or thinner.
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.

Adverb

thin (comparative more thin, superlative most thin)

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

   seed sown thin

   • Francis Bacon

     Spain is thin sown of people.

Further reading

• thin in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• thin in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
• thin at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• hint

Etymology 1

Etymology 2

Etymology 3

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *þīnaz.

Determiner

thīn

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ðiːn/

Etymology 1

From Proto-Germanic *þīnaz.

Etymology 2

See here.

Noun

thin

1. Aspirate mutation of tin.

Mutation