Word.ws English Dictionary

thin as a yard of pump water

thin as a yard of pump water adjective: very thin (skinny).

Adjective

thin as a yard of pump water (not comparable)

  1. (UK, US, dialectal) Very thin (skinny).
    • Her mother was betwixt and between, and her father the same; but Rosie was as thin as a yard of pump-water, and could—and did—eat like a beagle without ever putting-on an extra ounce. Maybe she was abusing her good-fortune.1947, Lynn Doyle, Green Oranges: Stories
    • She wadn't no summer morning to look at, poor soul, and her mistress kept her so thin as a yard of pump water. But there Providence knows best! There were a old fellow over by Aisholt, and he were such a upstanding courageous man he'd a […]1965, Publications of the Folk-lore Society

Examples of thin as a yard of pump water in a sentence

  • […] managed, but they all went on looking so thin as a yard of pump water except Dicky — and he grew fat.1968, Katharine M. Briggs, Folktales of England, University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 74:
  • […] puts away enough food to satiate a pack of ravenous hyenas and remains as thin as a yard of pump water.2014, Daniel P Mannix, Freaks: We Who Are Not As Others, eNet Press, →ISBN, page 139:
  • You're as pale as a lily and as thin as a yard of pump water.2018, Gloria Cook, Never Just a Memory, Canelo, →ISBN:

Origin of thin as a yard of pump water

A stream of water falling approximately three feet from a water pump into a bucket is both straight and thin.

Questions about thin as a yard of pump water

What does thin as a yard of pump water mean?
Thin as a yard of pump water means very thin (skinny).
How do you use thin as a yard of pump water in a sentence?
[…] managed, but they all went on looking so thin as a yard of pump water except Dicky — and he grew fat.
What part of speech is thin as a yard of pump water?
Thin as a yard of pump water is an adjective.

Words near thin as a yard of pump water in the dictionary

  1. thin air
  2. thin as a barber's cat
  3. thin as a rail
  4. thin as a rake
  5. thin as a wafer
  6. thin as a yard of pump water
  7. thin blue line
  8. thin client
  9. thin clients
  10. thin computing
  11. thin content

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: thin as a yard of pump water (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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