slender

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: slen=der

CIDE DICTIONARY

slender, a. [OE. slendre, sclendre, fr. OD. slinder thin, slender, perhaps through a French form; cf. OD. slinderen, slidderen, to creep; perh. akin to E. slide.].

•  Small or narrow in proportion to the length or the height; not thick; slim; as, a slender stem or stalk of a plant.  Chaucer.  [1913 Webster]

  "She, as a veil down to the slender waist,
  Her unadorned golden tresses wore."  [1913 Webster]
•  Weak; feeble; not strong; slight; as, slender hope; a slender constitution.  [1913 Webster]

  "Mighty hearts are held in slender chains."  [1913 Webster]

  "They have inferred much from slender premises."  [1913 Webster]

  "The slender utterance of the consonants."  [1913 Webster]
•  Moderate; trivial; inconsiderable; slight; as, a man of slender intelligence.  [1913 Webster]

  "A slender degree of patience will enable him to enjoy both the humor and the pathos."  [1913 Webster]
•  Small; inadequate; meager; pitiful; as, slender means of support; a slender pittance.  [1913 Webster]

  "Frequent begging makes slender alms."  [1913 Webster]
•  Spare; abstemious; frugal; as, a slender diet.  [1913 Webster]

  "The good Ostorius often deigned
  To grace my slender table with his presence."  [1913 Webster]
•  Uttered with a thin tone; -- the opposite of broad; as, the slender vowels long e and i.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

slender, adj. (slenderer, slenderest)
1 a of small girth or breadth (a slender pillar). b gracefully thin (a slender waist).
2 relatively small or scanty; slight, meagre, inadequate (slender hopes; slender resources).

Idiom

slender loris see LORIS.

Derivative

slenderly adv. slenderness n.

Etymology

ME: orig. unkn.

THESAURUS

slender

Junoesque, Lenten, Spartan, abstemious, agreeable, airy, amply endowed, angustifoliate, angustirostrate, angustisellate, angustiseptal, ascetic, asinine, attenuate, attenuated, austere, becoming, bonny, boyish, braw, built, built for comfort, buxom, callipygian, callipygous, catchpenny, circumscribed, close, close-fitting, comely, confined, constricted, cramp, cramped, crowded, curvaceous, curvy, deficient, delicate, diaphanous, diluted, dwarfed, dwarfish, empty, ethereal, exiguous, fair, fat, fatuous, feeble, fine, fine-drawn, finespun, flimsy, foolish, frail, fribble, fribbling, frivolous, frothy, frugal, futile, gauzy, girlish, goddess-like, good-looking, goodly, gossamer, graceful, gracile, idle, impoverished, inadequate, inane, incapacious, incommodious, insignificant, insubstantial, insufficient, isthmian, isthmic, jejune, lacy, lanky, lean, light, likely, limited, lissome, lithe, little, lovely to behold, meager, mean, miserly, misty, narrow, near, negligible, niggardly, nugacious, nugatory, off, otiose, outside, paltry, papery, parsimonious, personable, pleasing, pneumatic, poor, presentable, puny, rare, rarefied, reedy, remote, restricted, scant, scanty, scarce, scrawny, scrimp, scrimpy, shallow, shapely, shy, sightly, silly, skimp, skimpy, slenderish, slight, slight-made, slim, slimmish, slinky, small, spare, sparing, stacked, starvation, statuesque, stingy, stinted, strait, straitened, stunted, subsistence, subtle, superficial, svelte, sylphlike, tenuous, thin, thin-bodied, thin-set, thin-spun, thinnish, threadlike, tight, trifling, trim, trite, trivial, twiggy, unlikely, unnourishing, unnutritious, vacuous, vague, vain, vapid, wanting, wasp-waisted, watered, watered-down, watery, weak, well-built, well-favored, well-formed, well-made, well-proportioned, well-shaped, well-stacked, willowy, windy, wiredrawn, wispy

ROGET THESAURUS

slender

Unimportance

N unimportance, insignificance, nothingness, immateriality, triviality, levity, frivolity, paltriness, poverty, smallness, vanity, matter of indifference, no object, nothing, nothing to signify, nothing worth speaking of, nothing particular, nothing to boast of, nothing to speak of, small matter, no great matter, trifling matter, mere joke, mere nothing, hardly anything, scarcely anything, nonentity, small beer, cipher, no great shakes, peu de chose, child's play, kinderspiel, toy, plaything, popgun, paper pellet, gimcrack, gewgaw, bauble, trinket, bagatelle, Rickshaw, knickknack, whim-wham, trifle, trifles light as air, yankee notions, trumpery, trash, rubbish, stuff, fatras, frippery, leather or prunello, chaff, drug, froth bubble smoke, cobweb, weed, refuse, scum, joke, jest, snap of the fingers, fudge, fiddlestick, fiddlestick end, pack of nonsense, mere farce, straw, pin, fig, button, rush, bulrush, feather, halfpenny, farthing, brass farthing, doit, peppercorn, jot, rap, pinch of snuff, old son, cent, mill, picayune, pistareen, red cent, minutiae, details, minor details, small fry, dust in the balance, feather in the scale, drop in the ocean, flea-bite, molehill, nine days' wonder, ridiculus mus, flash in the pan, much ado about nothing, unimportant, of little account, of small account, of no account, of little importance, of no importance, immaterial, unessential, nonessential, indifferent, subordinate, mediocre, passable, fair, respectable, tolerable, commonplace, uneventful, mere, common, ordinary, inconsiderable, so-so, insignificant, inappreciable, trifling, trivial, slight, slender, light, flimsy, frothy, idle, puerile, airy, shallow, weak, powerless, frivolous, petty, niggling, piddling, peddling, fribble, inane, ridiculous, farcical, finical, finikin, fiddle-faddle, fingle-fangle, namby-pamby, wishy-washy, milk and water, poor, paltry, pitiful, contemptible, sorry, mean, meager, shabby, miserable, wretched, vile, scrubby, scrannel, weedy, niggardly, scurvy, putid, beggarly, worthless, twopennyhalfpenny, cheap, trashy, catchpenny, gimcrack, trumpery, one- horse, not worth the pains, not worth while, not worth mentioning, not worth speaking of, not worth a thought, not worth a curse, not worth a straw, beneath notice, unworthy of notice, beneath regard, unworthy of regard, beneath consideration, unworthy of consideration, de lana caprina, vain, slightly, rather, somewhat, pretty well, tolerably, for aught one cares, Int, no matter!, pish!, tush!, tut!, pshaw!, pugh!, pooh, pooh-pooh!, fudge!, bosh!, humbug!, fiddlestick, fiddlestick end!, fiddlededee!, never mind!, n'importe!, what signifies it, what boots it, what of it, what of that, what matter, what's the odds, a fig for', stuff!, nonsense!, stuff and nonsense, magno conatu magnas nugas, le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle, it matters not, it does not signify, it is of no consequence, it is of no importance, elephantus non capit murem, tempete dans un verre d'eau.

Smallness

N smallness, littleness, tenuity, paucity, fewness, meanness, insignificance (unimportance), mediocrity, moderation, small quantity, modicum, trace, hint, minimum, vanishing point, material point, atom, particle, molecule, corpuscle, point, speck, dot, mote, jot, iota, ace, minutiae, details, look, thought, idea, soupcon, dab, dight, whit, tittle, shade, shadow, spark, scintilla, gleam, touch, cast, grain, scruple, granule, globule, minim, sup, sip, sop, spice, drop, droplet, sprinkling, dash, morceau, screed, smack, tinge, tincture, inch, patch, scantling, tatter, cantlet, flitter, gobbet, mite, bit, morsel, crumb, seed, fritter, shive, snip, snippet, snick, snack, snatch, slip, scrag, chip, chipping, shiver, sliver, driblet, clipping, paring, shaving, hair, nutshell, thimbleful, spoonful, handful, capful, mouthful, fragment, fraction, drop in the ocean, animalcule, trifle, mere nothing, next to nothing, hardly anything, just enough to swear by, the shadow of a shade, finiteness, finite quantity, small, little, diminutive, minute, fine, inconsiderable, paltry, faint, slender, light, slight, scanty, scant, limited, meager, sparing, few, low, so-so, middling, tolerable, no great shakes, below par, under par, below the mark, at a low ebb, halfway, moderate, modest, tender, subtle, inappreciable, evanescent, infinitesimal, homeopathic, very small, atomic, corpuscular, microscopic, molecular, subatomic, mere, simple, sheer, stark, bare, near run, dull, petty, shallow, stolid, ungifted, unintelligent, to a small extent, on a small scale, a little bit, a wee bit, slightly, imperceptibly, miserably, wretchedly, insufficiently, imperfectly, faintly, passably, pretty well, well enough, partially, in part, in a certain degree, to a certain degree, to a certain extent, comparatively, some, rather in some degree, in some measure, something, somewhat, simply, only, purely, merely, at least, at the least, at most, at the most, ever so little, as little as may be, tant soit peu, in ever so small a degree, thus far, pro tanto, within bounds, in a manner, after a fashion, so to speak, almost, nearly, well-nigh, short of, not quite, all but, near upon, close upon, peu s'en faut, near the mark, within an ace of, within an inch of, on the brink of, scarcely, hardly, barely, only just, no more than, about, thereabouts, somewhere about, nearly, say, be the same, be little more or less, no ways, no way, no wise, not at all, not in the least, not a bit, not a bit of it, not a whit, not a jot, not a shadow, in no wise, in no respect, by no means, by no manner of means, on no account, at no hand, dare pondus idonea fumo, magno conatu magnas nugas, small sands the mountain, moments make the year.

Thinness

N narrowness, thinness, narrowness, closeness, exility, exiguity, line, hair's breadth, finger's breadth, strip, streak, vein, monolayer, epitaxial deposition, thinness, tenuity, emaciation, macilency, marcor, shaving, slip, thread paper, skeleton, shadow, anatomy, spindleshanks, lantern jaws, mere skin and bone, middle constriction, stricture, neck, waist, isthmus, wasp, hourglass, ridge, ghaut, ghat, pass, ravine, narrowing, coarctation, angustation, tapering, contraction, narrow, close, slender, thin, fine, thread-like, finespun, gossamer, paper-thin, taper, slim, slight-made, scant, scanty, spare, delicate, incapacious, contracted, unexpanded &c (expand), slender as a thread, emaciated, lean, meager, gaunt, macilent, lank, lanky, weedy, skinny, scrawny slinky, starved, starveling, herring gutted, worn to a shadow, lean as a rake, thin as a lath, thin as a whipping post, thin as a wafer, hatchet-faced, lantern-jawed, attenuated, shriveled, extenuated, tabid, marcid, barebone, rawboned, monomolecular.