Word.ws English Dictionary

stretching thin

stretching thin is the present participle and gerund of stretch thin.

Meaning of stretch thin

Verb

stretch thin (third-person singular simple present stretches thin, present participle stretching thin, simple past and past participle stretched thin)

  1. To spread the resources of too far.
    • Barcelona had been harried and hurried and stretched thin by the midway point in the second half. Tackles flew in. Toes were crushed, shins barked, ankles hacked.2019 May 8, Barney Ronay, “Liverpool’s waves of red fury and recklessness end in joyous bedlam”, in The Guardian

Questions about stretching thin

What is stretching thin the present participle and gerund of?
Stretching thin is the present participle and gerund of stretch thin.

Words near stretching thin in the dictionary

  1. stretching the envelope
  2. stretching the long bow
  3. stretching the point
  4. stretching the rules
  5. stretching the truth
  6. stretching thin
  7. stretching-iron
  8. stretching-irons
  9. stretchings
  10. stretchless
  11. stretchmark

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stretching thin (page history and authors); stretch thin (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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Cite this entry: “stretching thin.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stretching_thin. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.