slim
/ˈslɪm/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.05 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A type of cigarette substantially longer and thinner than normal cigarettes.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "Movie stars are usually slim, attractive, and young."
- "I'm afraid your chances are quite slim."
- "Juries who will convict on the slimmest evidence."
- "Wolves' debatable third in the last 10 minutes, with the ball only crossing the line by the slimmest of margins if at all, ensured a cracking finale, although City would have been left aggrieved had they let the win slip."
- "A slimly-shod lad;"
- "a slimly-made cart."
Etymology
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”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: -, slim, *slimb, *slimbaz