slender reed

slender reed noun: a person, fact, or resource on which one can rely only to a limited extent.

Noun

slender reed (plural slender reeds)

(idiomatic) A person, fact, or resource on which one can rely only to a limited extent.
- "It was perfectly natural for you to think that a lad of eighteen was a slender reed to lean on in the time of trouble and danger."1888, G. A. Henty, chapter 12, in In The Reign Of Terror
- "It is a slender reed," Gilbert said, "for so mighty an issue to rest upon."1908, E. Phillips Oppenheim, chapter 35, in The Great Secret

Yet these precedents offer no more than a slender reed for Gordon Brown, almost hopelessly down in the polls, to cling to.2009 September 28, Jeremy Warner, “Governments can survive recessions, but not in this case”, in Telegraph, UK, retrieved 17 Aug 2015:
“That is a slender reed for Senator Rubio to hang this on,” said Representative Alcee Hastings, Democrat of Florida, referring to the two court cases.2013 September 23, Lizette Alvarez, “Rubio Withdraws Support for Gay Black Judge’s Nomination to the Federal Bench”, in New York Times...

plural	slender reeds

What does slender reed mean?: Slender reed means a person, fact, or resource on which one can rely only to a limited extent.
How do you use slender reed in a sentence?: Yet these precedents offer no more than a slender reed for Gordon Brown, almost hopelessly down in the polls, to cling to.
What part of speech is slender reed?: Slender reed is a noun.
What is the plural of slender reed?: The plural of slender reed is slender reeds.

Adapted from Wiktionary: slender reed (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-slender reed.ogg.

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