Word.ws English Dictionary

leaner and meaner

leaner and meaner is the comparative form of lean and mean.

Meaning of lean and mean

Adjective

lean and mean (comparative leaner and meaner, superlative leanest and meanest)

  1. (colloquial) efficient because of having nothing in excess of what is needed, and single-minded in one's objective
    • He's a lean and mean fighting machine.

Questions about leaner and meaner

What is leaner and meaner the comparative form of?
Leaner and meaner is the comparative form of lean and mean.

Words near leaner and meaner in the dictionary

  1. leaned on
  2. leaned over backwards
  3. leaned towards
  4. leanenesse
  5. leaner
  6. leaner and meaner
  7. leaners
  8. leanest
  9. leanest and meanest
  10. leaneth
  11. Leanid

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: leaner and meaner (page history and authors); lean and mean (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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