Word.ws English Dictionary

thin

/ˈθɪn/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

New Zealand/ˈθən/

thin adjective: having little thickness or extent from one surface to its opposite.

thin: having little thickness or extent from one surface to its opposite
Image: Flame, not lame, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective

thin (comparative thinner, superlative thinnest)

  1. Having little thickness or extent from one surface to its opposite.
    • thin plate of metal; thin paper; thin board; thin covering
    • It was no mystery at all, or a mystery covered only with the thinnest and most transparent veil, that forced abortion is a common practice among Turkish women. The horrible secret as to the means and the drugs to be employed is pretty generally known, and where ignorance prevails there are "wise...1853, Charles MacFarlane, Kismet: or, The doom of Turkey, page 66
    Synonyms:
    narrow
  2. Very narrow in all diameters; having a cross section that is small in all directions.
    • thin wire; thin string
    • Typically, osteoporosis causes the amount of trabecular bone to be reduced and the bone to become thinner, while the intertrabecular space enlarges and the interconnected structure of trabecular bone is disrupted.2015 July 6, “Assessment of the Impact of Zoledronic Acid on Ovariectomized Osteoporosis Model Using Micro-CT Scanning”, in PLOS ONE, →DOI, archived from the original on 01 Apr 2022
    Synonyms:
    twiggy, fine
  3. Having little body fat or flesh; slim; slender; lean; gaunt.
    • thin person
    Synonyms:
    reedy
  4. Of low viscosity or low specific gravity.
    • Water is thinner than honey.
    Synonyms:
    runny
  5. Scarce; not close, crowded, or numerous; not filling the space.
    • The trees of a forest are thin; the corn or grass is thin.
    • Ferrara is very large, but extremely thin of people.1705, J[oseph] Addison, Remarks on Several Parts of Italy, &c. in the Years 1701, 1702, 1703, London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC
  6. Describing a poorly played golf shot where the ball is struck by the bottom part of the club head. See fat, shank, toe.
  7. Lacking body or volume; small; feeble; not full.
    • a thin, tight-lipped smile
    • thin, hollow sounds, and lamentable screams1690, [John] Dryden, Don Sebastian, King of Portugal: […], London: […] Jo. Hindmarsh, […], →OCLC, (please specify the page number)
  8. Slight; small; slender; flimsy; superficial; inadequate; not sufficient for a covering.
    • a thin disguise
  9. Of a route: relatively little used.
    • In short, we previously found that thin routes benefit from an increase in competition in the Spanish airline market when considering routes that were monopoly routes in 2001.2016, Hartmut Wolf, Peter Forsyth, David Gillen, Liberalization in Aviation, page 105
  10. Poor; scanty; without money or success.
    • Like their friends the "draggers," the "hoisters" or shoplifters are having a thin time these days, […]1945, Jack Henry, What Price Crime?, page 92

Noun

thin (plural thins)

  1. A loss or tearing of paper from the back of a stamp, although not sufficient to create a complete hole.
  2. Any food produced or served in thin slices.
    • chocolate mint thins
    • potato thins

Verb

thin (third-person singular simple present thins, present participle thinning, simple past and past participle thinned)

  1. (transitive) To make thin or thinner.
    • Exhausted fathers thinned the blood,
      You curse the legacy of pain;
      Darling of an infected brood,
      You feel disaster climb the vein.1941, Theodore Roethke, “Feud”, in Open House, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A[braham] Knopf, →OCLC; republished in The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke, London: Faber and Faber […], 1968, →OCLC, page 4
  2. (intransitive) To become thin or thinner.
    • The crowds thinned after the procession had passed: there was nothing more to see.
  3. To dilute.
  4. To remove some plants or parts of plants in order to improve the growth of what remains.
    • So floriferous are Asian pears, and the tree so laden with young fruit, that as the tree approaches maturity it is worth considering thinning the fruit (I can't quite bring myself to thin the flowers) so as to neither overburden the tree for this year nor tire it for the next. Thinning early in the...2015 September 5, Mark Diacono, “In praise of the Asian pear”, in The Daily Telegraph (Gardening), archived from the original on 12 Sep 2015, page 3

Adverb

thin (comparative more thin, superlative most thin)

  1. Not thickly or closely; in a scattered state.
    • seed sown thin
    • Spain is a nation thin sown of people.a. 1627 (date written), Francis [Bacon], “Considerations Touching a Warre with Spaine. […]”, in William Rawley, editor, Certaine Miscellany Works of the Right Honourable Francis Lo. Verulam, Viscount...

thin meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

thin in Hindi

having little thickness or extent from one surface to its opposite
पतला patlā, दुबला dublā

thin in Tamil

மெல்லிய, சன்னமான, ஒல்லி

thin in Marathi

having little thickness or extent from one surface to its opposite
बारीक bārīk

thin in Urdu

having little thickness or extent from one surface to its opposite
پتلا patlā, دبلا dublā
More languagesFewer languages
thin in Bengali
সরু śoru, চিকন cikon, পাতলা patola, ফলা phola
thin in Telugu
సన్నని sannani, అరుదు arudu, సాగగొట్టు sāgagoṭṭu, సన్నబడు sannabaḍu
thin in Malayalam
നേർത്ത nēṟtta
thin in Kannada
ತೆಳು teḷu
thin in Punjabi
ਪਤਲਾ patlā, ਬਰੀਕ barīk, ਇਕਹਿਰਾ ikahirā, ਕਾਗ਼ਜ਼ੀ kāġazī
thin in Gujarati
પાતળું pātaḷũ, સૂકું sūkũ
thin in Odia
ପତଳା pataḷā
thin in Sanskrit
तनु tanu
thin in Sinhala
සිහින් sihin
thin in Assamese
খীণ khin
thin in Nepali
मिच्नु micnu
thin in Pashto
نری naray, ډنګر ḍangër
thin in Tagalog
manipis, payat
thin in Arabic
رَفِيع rafīʕ, رَقِيق raqīq, رفيع rofayyaʕ, ضعيف ḍʕif
thin in Malay
nipis, kurus, cair
thin in Indonesian
tipis, kurus
thin in Persian
نازک nâzok, تنک tonok, باریک bârik, لاغر lâġar
thin in Thai
บาง baang, บางๆ baang baang, ผอมบาง pŏm baang, ผอม pɔ̌ɔm
thin in Vietnamese
mỏng, mảnh, ốm, gầy
thin in Myanmar
ပါး pa:, ကျဲ kyai:

Examples of thin in a sentence

  • It was no mystery at all, or a mystery covered only with the thinnest and most transparent veil, that forced abortion is a common practice among Turkish women.1853, Charles MacFarlane, Kismet: or, The doom of Turkey, page 66:
  • Out of spite, the human beings pretended not to believe that it was Snowball who had destroyed the windmill: they said that it had fallen down because the walls were too thin.1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm […]...
  • However, the misconception regarding skin hitboxes was created by a subset of players who believed that wearing thinner skins enhanced their gameplay.2024 March 16, Rishabh Sabarwal, “Fortnite hitboxes: Do skins have a competitive advantage?”, in Dexerto, archived from the original on 05...
  • Thinning early in the season, while the fruit is small, is ideal.2015 September 5, Mark Diacono, “In praise of the Asian pear”, in The Daily Telegraph (Gardening), archived from the original on 12 Sep...

All 40 example sentences with thin

Synonyms of thin

7 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of thin

Forms of thin

Adjective
comparativethinner
superlativethinnest
Noun
pluralthins
Verb
third-person singular presentthins
present participlethinning
past participlethinned
pastthinned
Adverb
comparativemore thin
superlativemost thin

Past tense of thin: thinned

Plural of thin: thins

Origin of thin

From Middle English thinne, thünne, thenne, from Old English þynne, from Proto-West Germanic *þunnī, from Proto-Germanic *þunnuz (“thin”) – compare *þanjaną (“to stretch, spread out”) – from Proto-Indo-European *ténh₂us (“thin”), from *ten- (“to stretch”). Cognate with German dünn, Dutch dun, West Frisian tin, Icelandic þunnur, Danish tynd, Swedish tunn, Latin tenuis, Irish tanaí, Welsh tenau, Latvian tievs, Polish cienki, Russian тонкий (tonkij), Sanskrit तनु (tanú, “thin”), Persian تنگ (tang, “narrow”). Doublet of tenuis. Also related to tenuous.

Words formed from thin

Phrases with thin

35 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with thin

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about thin

What does thin mean?
Thin means having little thickness or extent from one surface to its opposite.
What is thin in Hindi?
Thin in Hindi is पतला (patlā), दुबला (dublā). See Thin meaning in Hindi.
How do you use thin in a sentence?
It was no mystery at all, or a mystery covered only with the thinnest and most transparent veil, that forced abortion is a common practice among Turkish women.
What part of speech is thin?
Thin can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or an adverb.
How do you pronounce thin?
Thin is pronounced /ˈθɪn/.

Words near thin in the dictionary

  1. thimerasol
  2. thimerosal
  3. Thimmesh
  4. Thimmeshes
  5. Thimphu
  6. thin
  7. thin air
  8. thin as a barber's cat
  9. thin as a rail
  10. thin as a rake
  11. thin as a wafer

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: thin (page history and authors); thin (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); চিকন (Bengali) (page history and authors); ತೆಳು (Kannada) (page history and authors); ਇਕਹਿਰਾ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); પાતળું (Gujarati) (page history and authors); ପତଳା (Odia) (page history and authors); සිහින් (Sinhala) (page history and authors); मिच्नु (Nepali) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-thin.ogg.

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