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slim

UK/slɪm/ US/ˈslɪm/ fairly common slang
adjective (2) verb (1)

adjective

1.

being of delicate or slender build

  • “she was slender as a willow shoot is slender” Frank Norris
  • “a slim girl with straight blonde hair”
  • “watched her slight figure cross the street”
Synonyms
Similar
2.

small in quantity

  • “slender wages”
  • “a slim chance of winning”
  • “a small surplus”
Synonyms
Similar

verb

1.

Origin

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”).

Phrases

  • slim client
  • slim down
  • slim jim
  • slim pickings

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Narrower terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.