Word.ws English Dictionary

lean

/ˈliːn/

lean verb: to incline, deviate, or bend, from a vertical position; to be in a position thus inclining or deviating.

lean: to incline, deviate, or bend, from a vertical position; to be in a position thus inclining or...
Image: Saffron Blaze, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb (1)

lean (third-person singular simple present leans, present participle leaning, simple past and past participle leaned or (UK) leant)

  1. (intransitive) To incline, deviate, or bend, from a vertical position; to be in a position thus inclining or deviating.
    • a leaning column
    • She leaned out of the window.
  2. (copulative) To incline in opinion or desire; to conform in conduct; often with to, toward, etc.
    • I’m leaning towards voting Conservative in the next election.
    • The Hispanic vote leans Democratic.
  3. (Followed by against, on, or upon) To rest or rely, for support, comfort, to use as a hard surface for writing, etc.
    • He lean'd not on his fathers but himself.1864, Alfred Tennyson, “Aylmer’s Field”, in Enoch Arden, &c., London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC, page 54
    • The slightest effort made the patient cough. He would stand leaning on a stick and holding a hand to his side, and when the paroxysm had passed it left him shaking.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XLV, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, pages 374–375
  4. To hang outwards.
  5. To press against.
    • Oppreſs'd with Anguiſh, panting, and o'reſpent, / His fainting Limbs against an Oak he leant.1697, Virgil, “The Tenth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 533, lines...

Noun (1)

lean (plural leans)

  1. An inclination away from the vertical.
    • The trees had various leans toward gaps in the canopy.
    Synonyms:
    tilt

Adjective

lean (comparative leaner, superlative leanest)

  1. Slim; not fleshy.
    • They will now dedicate several hours at the gym every day to be leaner and stronger.2024 May 1, ZacharyFurr, “Gym types”, in The In Constant Chronicles
  2. Having little fat.
    • lean steak cuts
    • The butcher and the porkman painted up only the leanest scrags of meat; the baker, the coarsest of meagre loaves.2007, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, Penguin, →ISBN, page 34
  3. Having little extra or little to spare; scanty; meagre.
    • a lean budget
    • a lean harvest
  4. Having a low proportion or concentration of a desired substance or ingredient.
    • A lean ore hardly worth mining.
    • Running on too lean a fuel-air mixture will cause, among other problems, your internal combustion engine to heat up too much.
    Synonyms:
    deficient, dilute, poor
    Antonyms:
    rich
  5. (archaic) Of a character which prevents the compositor from earning the usual wages; opposed to fat.
    • lean copy, matter, or type
  6. Efficient, economic, frugal, agile, slimmed-down; pertaining to the modern industrial principles of "lean manufacturing".
    • lean management
    • lean manufacturing

Noun (2)

lean (countable and uncountable, plural leans)

  1. (uncountable) Meat with no fat on it.
    • Jack Sprat would eat no fat, / His wife would eat no lean.1639, or earlier, Anon: Jack Sprat
  2. (countable) An organism that is lean in stature.
    • The intermediates and leans are the predominant morphotypes found at the SE-NHR seamounts […]1986, Southwest Fisheries Center (U.S.), Collected Reprints (issue 1)
    • Obese Zuckers, compared to leans, consumed more food under free-feeding conditions.2012, Obesity: New Insights for the Healthcare Professional, page 56

Verb (2)

lean (third-person singular simple present leans, present participle leaning, simple past and past participle leaned)

  1. To thin out (a fuel-air mixture): to reduce the fuel flow into the mixture so that there is more air or oxygen.
    • He leaned the mixture in an effort to cause a backfire through the carburetor, the generally accepted method of breaking the ice loose.1938 July, Harold Blaine Miller, Dupont Miller, “Weather Hop”, in Boys' Life, Boy Scouts of America, →ISSN, page 25
    • Even the Pilot's Operating Handbooks (POH) for our training airplanes add to our paranoia with their insistence that we not lean the mixture until we're above 5000 feet density altitude.2002 July, Tom Benenson, “Can Your Engine Run Too Lean?”, in Flying, volume 129, number 7, →ISSN, page 73
    Synonyms:
    derich, disenrich
    Antonyms:
    enrich

Noun (3)

lean (uncountable)

  1. (US, slang) A recreational drug composed of codeine-promethazine cough syrup mixed with usually soda and associated with the hip-hop culture of the Southern United States.
    • Eyes real tight 'cause I'm chokin' the creep; vision messed up 'cause I'm drinkin' the lean.2005, “Stay Fly”, in Jordan Houston, Darnell Carlton, Paul Beauregard, Premro Smith, Marlon Goodwin, David Brown, Willie Hutchinson (lyrics), Most Known Unknown, performed by Three 6 Mafia (featuring...
    • "What's in the cup, let me see that / Girl, where the rest of that promethazine at?" / She said, "Cool, gotta run out to my Cadillac though / And I'll be like Fat Joe, and bring the lean back"2020, “Those Kinda Nights”, in Music to Be Murdered By, performed by Eminem ft. Ed Sheeran

Proper noun capitalized: Lean

Lean (plural Leans)

  1. A surname.

lean meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

lean in Hindi

being slim, not fleshy
छरहरा charahrā, ढुबला ḍhublā

lean in Tamil

to incline
சாய் cāy
to rest or rely upon for support
சாய் cāy
to hang outwards
சாய் cāy
to press against
சாய் cāy, அழுத்து aḻuttu

lean in Marathi

lean, slender
पातळ pātaḷ

lean in Urdu

چھریرا, دھان پان, دبلا, لاغر, نحیف, پتلا
More languagesFewer languages
lean in Bengali
ঝোঁকা jhō̃ka, আড় aṛ, হেলান helan, কাত kat
lean in Telugu
సన్నని sannani
lean in Malayalam
ചായുക cāyuka
lean in Kannada
ಒರಗು oragu, ತೆಳು teḷu
lean in Punjabi
ਲਿੱਸਾ lissā, ਮਾੜਾ māṛā, ਸੁੱਕਾ sukkā
lean in Odia
ପତଳା pataḷā
lean in Sanskrit
श्रयति śrayati
lean in Assamese
হলা hola, আঁউজা ãuza, কাতি হোৱা kati hüa, ঢলা dhola
lean in Arabic
مَالَ māla, اِسْتَنَدَ istanada, اِتَّكَأَ ittakaʔa
lean in Indonesian
menyandarkan
lean in Persian
لمیدن lamidan

Examples of lean in a sentence

  • Alcoa is now a lean and agile enterprise, after having split last year into two entities.
  • In Pisa, where [Galileo] was born, I climbed the worn steps of the tower that has been leaning southward almost from the day it was built in the 13th century.1989 May, John Boslough, “Searching for the Secrets of Gravity”, in National Geographic, volume 175, number 5, page 567:
  • Kitting for transport, on the other hand, is lean; for example, shipping complete sets of parts to make a TV or motorcycle or motor home is lean.2007, Richard J. Schonberger, Best Practices in Lean Six Sigma Process Improvement, page 204:

All 40 example sentences with lean

Synonyms of lean

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of lean

Forms of lean

Verb
third-person singular presentleans
present participleleaning
past participleleaned
pastleaned
past participle UKleant
past UKleant
Noun
pluralleans
Adjective
comparativeleaner
superlativeleanest
Proper noun
pluralLeans

Past tense of lean: leaned or leant

Plural of lean: leans

Origin of lean

From Middle English lenen (“to lean”), from Old English hleonian, hlinian (“to lean, recline, lie down, rest”), from Proto-West Germanic *hlinēn, from Proto-Germanic *hlināną (“to lean, incline”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱley-. Cognate via Proto-Germanic with Middle Dutch leunen (“to lean”), German lehnen (“to lean”); via Proto-Indo-European with climate, cline.

From Middle English lene (“lean”), from Old English hlǣne (“lean”), (cognate with Low German leen), perhaps from hlǣnan (“to cause to lean (due to hunger or lack of food)”), from Proto-Germanic *hlainijaną (“to cause to lean”). If so, then related to Old English hlinian, hleonian (“to lean”). Compare Old Norse linr (“mild; soft, limp; weak”), Old High German len (“mild”).

Probably from the verb to lean (see Etymology 1 above), supposedly because consumption of the intoxicating beverage causes one to lean or sway. Alternatively, from a clipping of gasoline (“an alcoholic beverage made of vodka and energy drink”).

Words formed from lean

Phrases with lean

Words that rhyme with lean

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about lean

What does lean mean?
Lean means to incline, deviate, or bend, from a vertical position; to be in a position thus inclining or deviating.
What is lean in Hindi?
Lean in Hindi is छरहरा (charahrā), ढुबला (ḍhublā). See Lean meaning in Hindi.
How do you use lean in a sentence?
Alcoa is now a lean and agile enterprise, after having split last year into two entities.
What part of speech is lean?
Lean can be a verb, a noun, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce lean?
Lean is pronounced /ˈliːn/.
What is the past tense of lean?
The past tense of lean is leaned.

Words near lean in the dictionary

  1. Leamons
  2. leams
  3. Leamside
  4. Leamy
  5. Leamys
  6. lean
  7. lean and mean
  8. lean burn
  9. lean client
  10. lean clients
  11. lean finely textured beef

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lean (page history and authors); Lean (page history and authors); पातळ (Marathi) (page history and authors); lean (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); আড় (Bengali) (page history and authors); సన్నని (Telugu) (page history and authors); ചായുക (Malayalam) (page history and authors); ಒರಗು (Kannada) (page history and authors); ਮਾੜਾ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); ପତଳା (Odia) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-lean.ogg.

Cite this entry: “lean.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lean. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.