different between thin vs little
thin
English
Etymology
From Middle English thinne, thünne, thenne, from Old English þynne, from Proto-West Germanic *þunn?, from Proto-Germanic *þunnuz (“thin”) – compare *þanjan? (“to stretch, spread out”) – from Proto-Indo-European *ténh?us (“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, Sanskrit ??? (tanú, “thin”), Persian ???? (tang, “narrow”). Doublet of tenuis. Also related to tenuous.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /???n/
- Rhymes: -?n
- Homophones: tin (with th-stopping), fin (with th-fronting)
Adjective
thin (comparative thinner, superlative thinnest)
- Having little thickness or extent from one surface to its opposite.
- 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.
- Very narrow in all diameters; having a cross section that is small in all directions.
- Having little body fat or flesh; slim; slender; lean; gaunt.
- thin person
- Of low viscosity or low specific gravity.
- Water is thinner than honey.
- Scarce; not close, crowded, or numerous; not filling the space.
- The trees of a forest are thin; the corn or grass is thin.
- Ferrara is very large, but extremely thin of people.
- (golf) Describing a poorly played golf shot where the ball is struck by the bottom part of the club head. See fat, shank, toe.
- Lacking body or volume; small; feeble; not full.
- thin, hollow sounds, and lamentable screams
- Slight; small; slender; flimsy; superficial; inadequate; not sufficient for a covering.
- a thin disguise
- (aviation) Of a route: relatively little used.
- 2016, Hartmut Wolf, ?Peter Forsyth, ?David Gillen, Liberalization in Aviation (page 105)
- In short, we previously found that thin routes benefit from an increase in competition in the Spanish airline market when considering routes that were monopoly routes in 2001.
- 2016, Hartmut Wolf, ?Peter Forsyth, ?David Gillen, Liberalization in Aviation (page 105)
- Poor; scanty; without money or success.
- 1945, Jack Henry, What Price Crime? (page 92)
- Like their friends the "draggers," the "hoisters" or shoplifters are having a thin time these days, […]
- 1945, Jack Henry, What Price Crime? (page 92)
Synonyms
- (having little thickness from one surface to its opposite): narrow; see also Thesaurus:narrow
- (very narrow in all diameters): fine
- (having little body fat or flesh): reedy, skinny, slender, slim, svelte, waifish; see also Thesaurus:slender or Thesaurus:scrawny
- (of low viscosity): runny, watery; see also Thesaurus:runny
- (not close or crowded): spaced out, sparse; see also Thesaurus:diffuse
- (not numerous): scant, scarce, slight
Antonyms
- thick
Derived terms
Translations
Noun
thin (plural thins)
- (philately) A loss or tearing of paper from the back of a stamp, although not sufficient to create a complete hole.
- Any food produced or served in thin slices.
- chocolate mint thins
- potato thins
Translations
Verb
thin (third-person singular simple present thins, present participle thinning, simple past and past participle thinned)
- (transitive) To make thin or thinner.
- (intransitive) To become thin or thinner.
- The crowds thinned after the procession had passed: there was nothing more to see.
- To dilute.
- To remove some plants or parts of plants in order to improve the growth of what remains.
Derived terms
- thin out
Translations
Adverb
thin (comparative more thin, superlative most thin)
- Not thickly or closely; in a scattered state.
- seed sown thin
- 1623, Francis Bacon, A Discourse of a War with Spain
- Spain is a nation thin sown of people.
Further reading
- thin in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
- thin in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
- thin at OneLook Dictionary Search
Anagrams
- Nith, hint
Middle English
Etymology 1
Determiner
thin (subjective pronoun þou)
- Alternative form of þin (“thy”)
Pronoun
thin (subjective þou)
- Alternative form of þin (“thine”)
Etymology 2
Adjective
thin
- Alternative form of thinne (“thin”)
Old Dutch
Etymology
From Proto-West Germanic *þ?n.
Determiner
th?n
- thy, your (singular)
- thine, yours
Inflection
Descendants
- Middle Dutch: dijn
- Dutch: dijn
- Limburgish: dien
Further reading
- “th?n”, in Oudnederlands Woordenboek, 2012
Old High German
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ði?n/
Determiner
th?n
- Alternative form of din
References
- Joseph Wright, An Old High German Primer, Second Edition
Old Saxon
Etymology 1
From Proto-West Germanic *þ?n.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /?i?n/
- (late Old Saxon) IPA(key): [ði?n]
Determiner
th?n
- thy, your (singular)
- thine, yours
Declension
See also
References
- Köbler, Gerhard, Altsächsisches Wörterbuch, (5. Auflage) 2014
- Altsächsisches Elementarbuch by Dr. F. Holthausen
Etymology 2
See here.
Determiner
thin
- instrumental singular masculine/neuter of th?
Welsh
Noun
thin
- Aspirate mutation of tin.
Mutation
thin From the web:
- what thins your blood
- what things are blue
- what things are purple
- what things can be recycled
- what things weakened the soviet union
- what things are red
- what things have gluten
- what things are green
little
English
Etymology
From Middle English litel, from Old English l?tel, from Proto-Germanic *l?tilaz (“tending to stoop, crouched, little”), from Proto-Indo-European *lewd- (“to bend, bent, small”), equivalent to lout +? -le. Cognate with Dutch luttel, regional German lütt and lützel, West Frisian lyts, Low German lütt, Old High German luzzil, Middle High German lützel, Old English l?tan (“to bow, bend low”); and perhaps to Old English lytig (“deceitful, lot deceit”), Gothic ???????????????????? (liuts, “deceitful”), ???????????????????????? (lutjan, “to deceive”); compare also Icelandic lítill (“little”), Swedish liten, Danish liden, lille, Gothic ???????????????????????????? (leitils), which appear to have a different root vowel. More at lout.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /?l?t?l/, [?l?tl?], [?l?.t???]
- (General American) IPA(key): /?l?tl?/, [?l?.???], [???.??]
- (General New Zealand) IPA(key): /?l?tl?/
- (General Australian) IPA(key): /?l?.???/
- Rhymes: -?t?l
- Hyphenation: lit?tle
- Homophone: Littell
Adjective
little (comparative less or lesser or littler, superlative least or littlest)
- Small in size.
- Insignificant, trivial.
- (offensive) Used to belittle a person.
- (offensive) Used to belittle a person.
- Very young.
- (of a sibling) Younger.
- (also Little) Used with the name of a place, especially of a country or its capital, to denote a neighborhood whose residents or storekeepers are from that place.
- 1871 October 18, The One-eyed Philosopher [pseudonym], "Street Corners", in Judy: or the London serio-comic journal, volume 9, page 255 [1]:
- If you want to find Little France, take any turning on the north side of Leicester square, and wander in a zigzag fashion Oxford Streetwards. The Little is rather smokier and more squalid than the Great France upon the other side of the Manche.
- 2004, Barry Miles, Zappa: A Biography, 2005 edition, ?ISBN, page 5:
- In the forties, hurdy-gurdy men could still be heard in all those East Coast cities with strong Italian neighbourhoods: New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Boston. A visit to Baltimore's Little Italy at that time was like a trip to Italy itself.
- 2020, Richa Bhosale, "Croatian Hall in need of repairs to remain open," Timmins Daily Press:
- "The theatre was bought by the Croatian immigrants as so many immigrants came here in the ’30s and mostly for mining jobs, but in Schumacher itself it was called little Zagreb, and Zagreb is the capital city of Croatia. There were so many of them that they wanted to have their own little community, so they bought the theatre and they renovated it at that time, remodelled it and made it into a Croatian Hall," she explained.
- 1871 October 18, The One-eyed Philosopher [pseudonym], "Street Corners", in Judy: or the London serio-comic journal, volume 9, page 255 [1]:
- Having few members.
- Short in duration; brief.
- I feel better after my little sleep.
- Small in extent of views or sympathies; narrow; shallow; contracted; mean; illiberal; ungenerous.
- The long-necked geese of the world that are ever hissing dispraise, / Because their natures are little.
- 2001, Nicholas Petsalis-Diomidis, The Unknown Callas: the Greek Years, pg 547.
- Showing unmistakably what a little person he really was, in June 1949 he wrote his newly married daughter with nauseating disregard for the truth
Usage notes
Some authorities regard both littler and littlest as non-standard. The OED says of the word little: "the adjective has no recognized mode of comparison. The difficulty is commonly evaded by resort to a synonym (as smaller, smallest); some writers have ventured to employ the unrecognized forms littler, littlest, which are otherwise confined to dialect or imitations of childish or illiterate speech." The forms lesser and least are encountered in animal names such as lesser flamingo and least weasel.
Antonyms
- (small): large, big
- (young): big
- (younger): big
Derived terms
Translations
Adverb
little (comparative less or lesser, superlative least)
- Not much.
- We slept very little last night.
- Little disappointed, then, she turned attention to "Chat of the Social World," gossip which exercised potent fascination upon the girl's intelligence. She devoured with more avidity than she had her food those pretentiously phrased chronicles of the snobocracy […] distilling therefrom an acid envy that robbed her napoleon of all its savour.
- Not at all.
Antonyms
- much
Translations
Determiner
little (comparative less, superlative least)
- Not much, only a little: only a small amount (of).
- There is (very) little water left.
- We had very little to do.
Usage notes
- Little is used with uncountable nouns, few with plural countable nouns.
- Little can be used with or without an article. With the indefinite article, the emphasis is that there is indeed some, albeit not much:
- We have a little money, so we'll probably get by.
- With no article or the definite article (or what), the emphasis is on the scarcity:
- We have little money, and little hope of getting more.
- The little (or What little) money we have is all going to pay for food and medication, so we can't save any.
See also
- a little
Antonyms
- (not much): much
Translations
Pronoun
little
- Not much; not a large amount.
- Little is known about his early life.
Noun
little (plural littles)
- A small amount.
- Can I try a little of that sauce?
- Many littles make a mickle. (Scottish proverb)
- Little did he do to make me comfortable.
- If you want some cake, there's a little in the refrigerator
- (BDSM, slang) The participant in ageplay who acts out the younger role.
- (colloquial, college slang) A newly initiated member of a sorority.
Antonyms
- (BDSM): big
Derived terms
- little space
Related terms
- a little
- li'l, li'l', lil
- little by little
- little old
- belittle (cognate verb)
Anagrams
- tillet
little From the web:
- what little women character are you
- what little boys are made of
- what little wonder
- what little girl
- what little woman died
- what little island is in the allstate commercial
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