Word.ws English Dictionary

slim

/ˈslɪm/

slim adjective: slender in an attractive way. Also the alternative form of sling.

Adjective

slim (comparative slimmer, superlative slimmest)

  1. Slender in an attractive way.
    • Movie stars are usually slim, attractive, and young.
  2. (broadly) Designed to make the wearer appear slim.
    Synonyms:
    slimming
  3. Long and narrow.
  4. Of a reduced size, with the intent of being more efficient.
    Synonyms:
    agile
  5. Very small, tiny.
    • I'm afraid your chances are quite slim.
    • Juries who will convict on the slimmest evidence.
  6. (Northern England, Scotland, rustic) Bad, of questionable quality; not strongly built, flimsy.
    • A slimly-shod lad;
    • a slimly-made cart.
  7. (South Africa, obsolete) Sly, crafty.

Noun (1)

slim (countable and uncountable, plural slims)

  1. A type of cigarette substantially longer and thinner than normal cigarettes.
    • I only smoke slims.
  2. (Ireland, regional) A potato farl.
  3. (Africa, East, uncountable) AIDS, or the chronic wasting associated with its later stages.
    • As in the West, only about 50 per cent of patients with slim fully investigated will have a putative pathogen identified.2003, Charled F. Gilks, “HIV in the Developing World”, in David A. Warrell et al., editors, Oxford Textbook of Medicine, 4th edition, volume 1, →ISBN, page 446
  4. (slang, uncountable) Cocaine.

Verb

slim (third-person singular simple present slims, present participle slimming, simple past and past participle slimmed)

  1. (intransitive) To lose weight in order to achieve slimness.
  2. (transitive) To make slimmer; to reduce in size.

Proper noun capitalized: Slim

IPA/slɪm/

Slim (plural Slims)

  1. A surname.
  2. A male given name.

Noun (2) capitalized: SLiM

SLiM (plural SLiMs)

  1. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of short linear motif.

Also used as

slim is also the alternative form of sling.

slim meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali

slim in Hindi

slender
पतला patlā

slim in Marathi

स्लिम

slim in Urdu

slender
پتلا patlā

slim in Bengali

স্লিম
More languagesFewer languages
slim in Telugu
సన్నబడు sannabaḍu
slim in Odia
ସ୍ଲିମ
slim in Nepali
स्लिम
slim in Arabic
نَحِيل naḥīl, نَحِيف naḥīf, أَهْيَف ʔahyaf
slim in Indonesian
langsing, ramping
slim in Vietnamese
mảnh khảnh

Examples of slim in a sentence

  • Thanks to my strict diet, I've slimmed down to eleven stone.
  • Capri pants can be a generic term for any cropped slim pants.
  • After all the hype for the diet plan, only the results ended up slim.

All 40 example sentences with slim

Synonyms of slim

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of slim

Forms of slim

Adjective
comparativeslimmer
superlativeslimmest
Noun
pluralslims
alternative formSlim
pluralSLiMs
Verb
third-person singular presentslims
present participleslimming
past participleslimmed
pastslimmed
Proper noun
pluralSlims

Origin of slim

Borrowing from Low German or Dutch slim (“bad, sly, clever”), from Middle Dutch slim (“bad, crooked”), from Old Dutch *slimb, from Proto-West Germanic *slimb, from Proto-Germanic *slimbaz (“oblique, crooked”). The sense development would have been "slanting, cunning" (Dutch) > "insignificant, slight" and then "thin, graceful" in English, a shift that Liberman calls an "incredible amelioration" of word meaning. The pejorative sense found in Low German and Dutch is also found preserved in the archaic English noun slim (“worthless or lazy person”), also comparable to the South African use of the adjective as "crafty, sly." Compare Dutch slim (“smart, clever, crafty”), Middle High German slimp (“slanting, awry”), German schlimm (“bad”), West Frisian slim (“bad, dire”).

* As an English surname, from the noun slime, probably topographic. * As a Native American surname (Navajo), from the English adjective slim, a calque of personal names containing the suffix -tsʼósí (“skinny, slim”), such as Hastiin-tsʼósí (“slim man”), see also Tsosie.

Words formed from slim

Phrases with slim

Words that rhyme with slim

35 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about slim

What does slim mean?
Slim means slender in an attractive way.
What is slim in Hindi?
Slim in Hindi is पतला (patlā). See Slim meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is slim?
Slim can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce slim?
Slim is pronounced /ˈslɪm/.

Words near slim in the dictionary

  1. Sliker
  2. Slikers
  3. slikes
  4. sliking
  5. slily
  6. slim
  7. slim client
  8. slim clients
  9. slim down
  10. slim jim
  11. slim jims

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: slim (page history and authors); Slim (page history and authors); SLiM (page history and authors); slim (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); slim (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); slim (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); slim (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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:

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

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