Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use lean in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb, noun, adjective

Lean means to incline, deviate, or bend, from a vertical position; to be in a position thus inclining or deviating. Example: “She leaned out of the window.”

Examples of lean by meaning

verbTo 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.

verbTo 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.

verbTo rest or rely, for support, comfort, to use as a hard surface for writing, etc.

  • 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...

nounAn inclination away from the vertical.

  • The trees had various leans toward gaps in the canopy.

adjectiveSlim; 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

adjectiveHaving 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

adjectiveHaving little extra or little to spare; scanty; meagre.

  • a lean budget
  • a lean harvest

adjectiveHaving 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.

More sentences with lean

  • While reading her book, Sally leaned back against her husband, wishing it were the human kind.From the entry husband
  • Careful—she knows how to spin a good web, but don't lean too hard on what she says.From the entry web
  • Could you lean the picture to the left just a tad more?From the entry tad
  • The internet makes it easier for leaner businesses to disrupt the larger and more unwieldy ones.From the entry disrupt
  • I leant out of the back door and called for Lucy.From the entry call for
  • He didn't make a donation until some of his customers leaned on him.From the entry lean on
  • The East Coast of the US leans left in elections.From the entry left
  • He had the wild idea that if he leant forward a little, he might be able to touch the mountain-top.From the entry idea
  • I leant forward to get a better look.From the entry forward
  • He's a lean and mean fighting machine.From the entry lean and mean
  • He leaned across for a book.From the entry across
  • Lean cattle recruit in fresh pastures.From the entry recruit
  • If you don't use your flight instruments when flying in cloud, you can easily get the leans and enter a fatal graveyard spiral.From the entry leans
  • Kirk leaned forward and picked up his mic before setting back into an upright position.2025 September 12, Eric Levenson, “Charlie Kirk’s final hours: How a stage for debate became a scene of tragedy”, in CNN, archived from…. From the entry count
  • The ectomorph body type is characterized by narrow shoulders and hips and a lean build.2025 February 6, Laura Schober, “Everything To Know About Having an Ectomorph Body Type”, in Health. From the entry ectomorph
  • Such speculations are often met with a retort that leans even harder into the stupidity allegation.2025 October 2, William Davies, “A critique of pure stupidity: understanding Trump 2.0”, in The Guardian. From the entry 4D chess
  • One woman in the video leans toward the camera and whispers: "Aqua Tofana, am I right?2024 November 11, Emma Marsden, “What Is 'MATGA?' Anti-Trump Women's Deadly New Trend”, in Newsweek. From the entry aqua Tofana
  • Narita leans into his Ivy League pedigree as he fosters a nerdy shock jock impression.2023 February 12, Motoko Rich, Hikari Hida, “A Yale Professor Suggested Mass Suicide for Old People in Japan. What Did He Mean?”, in The…. From the entry shock jock
  • "I did!" She had reached the barricades, and leaned over them languorously.2023 October 14, HarryBlank, “Face Time”, in SCP Foundation, archived from the original on 23 May 2024. From the entry languorously
  • The fall rush around Acadia helps workers survive winter’s lean months.2023 September 28, Jack Healy, “National Parks, and Those Who Count on Them, Brace for Possible Shutdown”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry Acadia
  • “I believe in sound money and a lean state,” she said.2022 October 5, Rowena Mason, quoting Liz Truss, “Liz Truss promises ‘growth, growth and growth’ in protest-hit speech”, in The Guardian. From the entry iron
  • Woebot doesn’t pretend to be a human; instead, it leans into its robotness.2022 September 27, Barclay Bram, “My Therapist, the Robot”, in The New York Times. From the entry robotness
  • Francine leans down and her body tenses, shoulders reddening as she makes a sharp, punchy gesture.2021, Chandler Baker, The Husbands. From the entry punchy
  • Zapper leaned around and held up his hand to Holmes for a high-five, saying.2021, Kenneth Johnson, Holmes Coming, Blackstone Publishing, published 2022, →ISBN. From the entry Holmesy
  • I leaned against the wall and slid down into the ninety-degree corner between two hard light walls.2018, John Oddfellow / Caleb Rhodes, The Engine of a Million Plots, →ISBN, page 179. From the entry hard light
  • His head leaned back, water splashing his face as I throated his solid pipe.2017, Brian Patrick Davis, Songs About Boys, →ISBN. From the entry throat
  • Simmons casually leaned back as if he was going to let the throw go to third.2017, Michael Clair, “Andrelton Simmons used a great deke and some great throws to fool the Astros out of an inning”, in Cut 4. From the entry deke

Meaning of lean

  1. verb To incline, deviate, or bend, from a vertical position; to be in a position thus inclining or deviating.
  2. verb To incline in opinion or desire; to conform in conduct; often with to, toward, etc.
  3. verb To rest or rely, for support, comfort, to use as a hard surface for writing, etc.

Full definition of lean

Questions about lean in a sentence

How do you use lean in a sentence?
Lean is used as a verb, noun and adjective. For example: “She leaned out of the window.”
What is a short sentence with lean?
“a lean budget”
What does lean mean?
Lean means to incline, deviate, or bend, from a vertical position; to be in a position thus inclining or deviating.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lean (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use lean in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/lean. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.