thin

1. adjective

1)

a thin white line

Syn:

narrow, fine, attenuated

Ant:

thick, broad

2)

a thin cotton nightdress

Syn:

lightweight, light, fine, delicate, floaty, flimsy, diaphanous, gossamer, insubstantial; sheer, gauzy, filmy, transparent, see-through; paper-thin

Ant:

thick, heavy

3)

a tall, thin woman

Syn:

slim, lean, slender, rangy, willowy, svelte, sylphlike, spare, slight; skinny, underweight, scrawny, waiflike, scraggy, bony, angular, rawboned, hollow-cheeked, gaunt, skin-and-bones, emaciated, skeletal, wasted, pinched, undernourished, underfed; lanky, spindly, gangly, gangling, weedy; informal anorexic, like a bag of bones

Ant:

plump, overweight, fat

4)

his thin gray hair

Syn:

sparse, scanty, wispy, thinning

Ant:

thick, abundant

5)

a bowl of thin soup

Syn:

watery, weak, dilute, diluted; runny

Ant:

thick, hearty

6)

her thin voice

Syn:

weak, faint, feeble, small, soft; reedy

Ant:

strong, loud

7)

the plot is very thin

Syn:

insubstantial, flimsy, slight, feeble, lame, poor, weak, tenuous, inadequate, insufficient, unconvincing, unbelievable, implausible

Ant:

meaty, convincing

2. verb

1)

some paint must be thinned down before use

Syn:

dilute, water down, weaken

2)

the crowds were beginning to thin out

Syn:

disperse, dissipate, scatter; become less dense, become less in number, decrease, diminish, dwindle

••

thin, gaunt, lean, skinny, slender, spare, svelte

You can't be too rich or too thin, but you can be too skinny. Thin describes someone whose weight is naturally low in proportion to his or her height, although it may also imply that the person is underweight (she looked pale and thin after her operation). Skinny is a more blunt and derogatory term for someone who is too thin, and it often implies underdevelopment (a skinny little boy; a tall, skinny fashion model). Most people would rather be called slender, which combines thinness with gracefulness and good proportions (the slender legs of a Queen Anne table), or better yet, svelte, a complimentary term that implies a slim, elegant figure (after six months of dieting, she looked so svelte I hardly recognized her). Lean and spare are used to describe people who are naturally thin, although spare suggests a more muscular leanness (a tall, spare man who looked like Abraham Lincoln). Gaunt, on the other hand, means so thin that the angularity of the bones can be seen beneath the skin (looking gaunt after her latest bout with cancer).