thickset

UK/ˈθɪkˌsɛt/US/ˈθɪkˌsɛt/

adjectiveC1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechToo rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Thickset means heavily and solidly built. A thickset man, thickset and strong, thickset shoulders.

It describes a build rather than a weight, so a thickset person is broad and solid rather than fat. Of a hedge it means planted close, which is the older sense of the two.

Definitions of thickset

1adjectivethicksetHeavily and solidly built.C1
“The bouncer was a short, thickset man with a neck as wide as his head.”

thickset is a build.

Where it comes from

Thick plus set, from set in the sense of built or planted.

From thick + set.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

thickset in the wild

Mama is a purse-lipped, thickset senior citizen in her mid-to-late 60s.
Thelma Harper
Malapterurus electricus is a thickset fish with six mouth barbels and a single fin on its back, just anterior to the rounded tail fin.
Malapterurus electricus
Described as "Tall, thickset and athletic", Gehrs played 13 games of football for South Adelaide in 1902 and seven games for North Adelaide in 1908.
Algy Gehrs
Although a small population of the Sentani rainbowfish is maintained in captivity, it has frequently been confused with the closely related, more thickset C. fasciata.
Sentani rainbowfish
Hyraxes, also called dassies, are small, stout, thickset, herbivorous mammals in the family Procaviidae within the order Hyracoidea.
Hyrax

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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