thin

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 women," old hags, professional abortists, who go about the country relieving matrons of their burthens for a few piastres apiece […]

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 […], London: Secker & Warburg, published May 1962, →OCLC:

The newest form of gold created in a lab is the thickness of two atoms, according to a new study. It’s only 0.47 nanometers thick, which is one million times thinner than a human finger nail. […] This makes it the thinnest unsupported gold ever created and it could be used in electronics and medical devices going forward.
The gold is made up of two layers of atoms stacked on top of each other. But don’t let the thin structure fool you.

2019 August 6, Ashley Strickland, “Scientists just created the world’s thinnest gold and it’s two atoms thick”, in CNN:

Having little thickness or extent from one surface to its opposite.

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:

Very narrow in all diameters; having a cross section that is small in all directions.

thin person

Having little body fat or flesh; slim; slender; lean; gaunt.

Water is thinner than honey.

Of low viscosity or low specific gravity.

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:

Scarce; not close, crowded, or numerous; not filling the space.

(golf) Describing a poorly played golf shot where the ball is struck by the bottom part of the club head. See fat, shank, toe.

a thin, tight-lipped smile

thin, hollow sounds, and lamentable screams

1690, [John] Dryden, Don Sebastian, King of Portugal: […], London: […] Jo. Hindmarsh, […], →OCLC, (please specify the page number):

Lacking body or volume; small; feeble; not full.

a thin disguise

Slight; small; slender; flimsy; superficial; inadequate; not sufficient for a covering.

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:

(aviation) Of a route: relatively little used.

Like their friends the "draggers," the "hoisters" or shoplifters are having a thin time these days, […]

1945, Jack Henry, What Price Crime?, page 92:

en-adj

thin (comparative thinner, superlative thinnest)

thinner (comparative)
thinnest (superlative)

narrow

having little thickness from one surface to its opposite

𖼽𖽔

having little thickness or extent from one surface to its opposite

բարակ

very narrow in all diameters; having a cross section that is small in all directions

ضعيف

having little body fat or flesh; slim; slender; lean; gaunt

ջրիկ

of low viscosity or low specific gravity

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.


thin

(philately) A loss or tearing of paper from the back of a stamp, although not sufficient to create a complete hole.

chocolate mint thins

potato thins

wheat thins

Any food produced or served in thin slices.


thin

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:

The crowds thinned after the procession had passed: there was nothing more to see.

(intransitive) To become thin or thinner.

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 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 2015-09-12, page 3:

To remove some plants or parts of plants in order to improve the growth of what remains.

en-verb

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

thins (present singular third-person)
thinning (participle present)
thinned (participle past)
thinned (past)


thin

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 S. Alban. […], London: […] I. Hauiland for Humphrey Robinson, […], published 1629, →OCLC:

Not thickly or closely; in a scattered state.

en-adv

thin (comparative more thin, superlative most thin)

more thin (comparative)
most thin (superlative)