thin
/ˈθɪn/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.47 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Very narrow in all diameters; having a cross section that is small in all directions.
adj
Of low viscosity or low specific gravity.
adj
Describing a poorly played golf shot where the ball is struck by the bottom part of the club head. See fat, shank, toe.
adj
Slight; small; slender; flimsy; superficial; inadequate; not sufficient for a covering.
Example Sentences
- "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 […]"
- "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."
- "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."
- "However, the misconception regarding skin hitboxes was created by a subset of players who believed that wearing thinner skins enhanced their gameplay."
- "thin wire; thin string"
Etymology
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: thinne, þynne, *þunnī, *þunnuz, *ténh₂us
Usage
Inflected Forms
thinner (comparative)
thinnest (superlative)
thins (plural)
thins (present, singular)
thinning (participle, present)
thinned (participle, past)
thinned (past)
more thin (comparative)
most thin (superlative)