slender

See also: Slender

English

Etymology

From Middle English slendre, sclendre, from Old French esclendre (“thin, slender”), from Old Dutch slinder (“thin, lank”), from Proto-Germanic *slindraz (“sliding, slippery”), from Proto-Indo-European *sleydʰ- (“to slip”). Cognate with Bavarian Schlenderling (“that which dangles”), German schlendern (“to saunter, stroll”), Dutch slidderen, slinderen (“to wriggle, creep like a serpent”), Low German slindern (“to slide on ice”). More at slide, slither.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈslɛndə/
• (General American) enPR: slĕnʹdər, IPA^(key): /ˈslɛndɚ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛndə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: slen‧der

Adjective

slender (comparative slenderer or more slender, superlative slenderest or most slender)

1. Thin; slim.

   A rod is a long slender pole used for angling.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 3, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     Sepia Delft tiles surrounded the fireplace, their crudely drawn Biblical scenes in faded cyclamen blending with the pinkish pine, while above them, instead of a mantelshelf, there was an archway high enough to form a balcony with slender balusters and a tapestry-hung wall behind.

2. (figurative) meagre; deficient

   Being a person of slender means, he was unable to afford any luxuries.

   • 1911, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 9, page 413:

     The grounds for the conjecture are somewhat slender.

   • 2022 January 26, Barry Doe, “Fabrik offers an end to hard times”, in RAIL, number 949, page 42:

     The slender service between Ellesmere Port and Helsby has been added, too.

3. (Gaelic languages) Palatalized.

Synonyms

• (thin): lithe, svelte, willowy; see also Thesaurus:slender
• (meagre): insufficient, scarce, sparse; see also Thesaurus:inadequate

Antonyms

• (antonym(s) of “palatalized”): broad
• See also Thesaurus:obese

Derived terms

• red slender loris
• slender-billed curlew
• slender-billed greenfinch
• slender-billed gull
• slender cypress pine
• slender-horned gazelle
• slenderish
• slender loris
• slenderly
• Slender Man
• slender moa
• slenderness
• slender poison
• slender reed
• slender seahorse
• slender sea lettuce
• slender sedge
• slender shrew
• slender skimmer
• Slender West Lake

 

Translations

thin

• Arabic: نَحِيف (naḥīf), أَهْيَف (ʔahyaf), نَحِيل (naḥīl)
• Belarusian: стро́йны (strójny), стро́мкі (strómki)
• Bulgarian: стро́ен (bg) (stróen), тъ́нък (bg) (tǎ́nǎk)
• Catalan: esvelt (ca)
• Cherokee: (animate) ᎤᎴᏐᏓ (ulesoda)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 苗條 / 苗条 (zh) (miáotiáo)

• Crimean Tatar: cuka
• Czech: štíhlý (cs), útlý (cs)
• Danish: slank (da)
• Dutch: slank (nl)
• Esperanto: svelta (eo)
• Finnish: hoikka (fi)
• French: svelte (fr), mince (fr)
• Galician: esbelto m
• German: schlank (de)
• Greek: ισχνός (el) (ischnós), ραδινός (el) (radinós), λεπτός (el) (leptós), άπλερος (el) m (ápleros)

  Aeolic: βράδινος (brádinos)

  Ancient: ῥαδινός (rhadinós)

• Hindi: पतला (hi) (patlā)
• Hungarian: vékony (hu), (of a person) karcsú (hu)
• Irish: caol, seangchruthach (of a person)
• Italian: snello (it)
• Japanese: ほっそりした (ja) (hossori shita), 細い (ja) (ほそい, hosoi), 細長い (ja) (ほそながい, hosonagai)
• Korean: 날씬하다 (ko) (nalssinhada)
• Latin: tenuis, gracilis
• Latvian: slaids
• Macedonian: тенок (tenok), виток (vitok)
• Maori: tūpuhi, tūpuhipuhi, pūhihi, pīrahirahi
• Norman: mînchon
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: slank

• Ottoman Turkish: ضعیف (zaʼif)
• Plautdietsch: schlank, denn
• Polish: szczupły (pl), smukły (pl)
• Portuguese: esbelto (pt), magro (pt)
• Romanian: subtire n
• Russian: то́нкий (ru) (tónkij), стро́йный (ru) (strójnyj)
• Sanskrit: तनु (sa) (tanu)
• Scottish Gaelic: caol, seang
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: ви̏так, мр̏шав

  Roman: vȉtak (sh), mȑšav (sh)

• Slovak: štíhly, tenký
• Slovene: vitek
• Spanish: esbelto (es), slender (slénder, Puerto Rico)
• Swedish: slank (sv)
• Ukrainian: струнки́й (strunkýj), тонки́й (uk) (tonkýj)
• Urdu: پتلا (patlā)
• Vietnamese: mảnh khảnh (vi)

Anagrams

• Lenders, lenders, relends

Spanish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English slender.

Adjective

slender m or f (masculine and feminine plural slenderes)

1. (Puerto Rico) slender

Usage notes

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

Further reading

• “slender” in Diccionario de americanismos, Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española, 2010