Thin

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /θɪn/

Definitions

1. Not thick; having little distance between opposite sides or surfaces
2. Having a small measurement between two surfaces or edges, lacking bulk or density
3. Characterized by a narrow dimension from one side to the opposite, appearing slender or fine

Etymology: Thin is one of those English words whose oldest sense is hard to see in its modern use. Its ancestor, Old English "þynne," came from a Proto-Germanic root meaning "to stretch or spread out," so a thin thing was originally one that had been drawn out. That stretching idea links it to the verb "than" in the sense of spreading or extending, and the same root gave Old English "þanja" its meaning of stretching. The word has a famous relative in Latin. "Tenuis" also meant thin or fine, and English borrowed it as "tenuous," which keeps the sense of something stretched so fine it barely holds together. Thin and tenuous are therefore doublets: two English words from one root, one inherited through the Germanic line and one borrowed directly from Latin. The same ancient root also turns up far from English. Sanskrit "tanú" means thin, and Russian "tonkij" and Polish "cienki" share the sense, showing how widely this stretching-and-thinness idea spread across the Indo-European languages.

Synonyms: slender, slim, narrow, fine, skinny

Antonyms: thick, fat, wide, bulky, heavy