slim
/ˈslɪm/ adjective, noun, verb, proper noun
Forms slimmer slimmest slims slimming slimmed
- adjective (of a person or a person's build) Slender in an attractive way. “Movie stars are usually slim, attractive, and young.”
- adjective (by extension, of clothing) Designed to make the wearer appear slim.
- adjective (of an object) Long and narrow.
- adjective (of a workforce) Of a reduced size, with the intent of being more efficient.
- adjective (of something abstract like a chance or margin) Very small, tiny. “I'm afraid your chances are quite slim.”
- adjective (rustic, Northern England, Scotland) Bad, of questionable quality; not strongly built, flimsy. “A slimly-shod lad;”
- adjective (South Africa, obsolete in UK) Sly, crafty.
- noun A type of cigarette substantially longer and thinner than normal cigarettes. “I only smoke slims.”
- noun (Ireland, regional) A potato farl.
- noun (East Africa, uncountable) AIDS, or the chronic wasting associated with its later stages.
- noun (slang, uncountable) Cocaine.
- verb (intransitive) To lose weight in order to achieve slimness.
- verb (transitive) To make slimmer; to reduce in size.
- proper noun A surname.
- proper noun A male given name.
Synonyms
lithe svelte willowy gaunt gracile lank lean leansome lithesome lissome rangy sleek slender slight slinky swack sylphlike slimming fine stalky reduce melt off lose weight slenderize thin slim down
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”).
* As an English surname, from the noun slime, probably topographic.
* As a Native American surname (Navajo), from the English adjective slim, a calque of personal names containing the suffix -tsʼósí (“skinny, slim”), such as Hastiin-tsʼósí (“slim man”), see also Tsosie.
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Worthless; bad. [Prov. Eng. & Scot.]
- adjective Weak; slight; unsubstantial; poor; as, a slim argument. "That was a slim excuse." Barrow.
Etymology [Formerly, bad, worthless, weak, slight, awry, fr. D. slim; akin to G. schlimm, MHG. slimp oblique, awry; of uncertain origin. The meaning of the English word seems to have been influenced by slender.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “slim”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details