Other forms: thinner, thinning, thinned, thinnest, thins
Thin means there is very little between one side and the other. A thin slice of ham, thin ice on the pond, a thin cotton shirt that lets the wind straight through.
Of a person, thin means not fat, and it is the flat, neutral word — slim is the compliment, skinny is blunt to the point of rude. It spreads a long way from width: thin soup has too much water in it, a thin crowd is a small one, hair thins as people age, and a thin excuse is one nobody believes. As a verb, you thin the paint with water, and traffic thins out after nine. The set phrases carry real weight — out of thin air, from nowhere; thin on the ground, meaning scarce; through thick and thin, meaning loyally whatever happens; on thin ice, in a risky position; and the thin end of the wedge, the small bad start of something much worse.
1adjectiveshortHaving a short distance between one surface and the other.~59%
“Cut the bread into thin slices.”
2adjectivethinHaving little flesh on the body; not fat.~23%
“He looked thin and tired when he came home.”
3adjectiveliquidOf a liquid: watery, without enough body to it.~2%
“The gravy was thin and tasted of almost nothing.”
4adjectivenumberFew in number and widely spread out.~2%
“The crowd was thin for a Saturday afternoon.”
5adjectiveweakWeak and unconvincing.~12%
“That is a very thin excuse and he knows it.”
6verbthickTo make something less thick or less dense.~2%
“Thin the paint with a little water before you start.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 10 sentences found in the wild and placed 8 of them on a sense (2 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Also accepted in games: slim, skinny
Old English þynne came from Proto-Germanic *þunnuz, thin, and before that from Proto-Indo-European *ténh₂us, built on *ten-, to stretch. A thin thing is a stretched thing. The same root gave Latin tenuis, which English borrowed separately as tenuous — the two are twins that arrived a thousand years apart.
Proto-Germanic
*þunnuz — thin
Proto-West Germanic
*þunnī
Old English
þynne
Middle English
thinne
English, today
thin
From Middle English thinne, thunne, 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, Russian тонкий, Sanskrit तनु (“thin”), Persian تنگ (“narrow”). a doublet of tenuis. Also related to tenuous.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA