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Slim
Definitions
- 1 Slender; thin.; Slender in an attractive way.
"Movie stars are usually slim, attractive, and young."
- 2 Slender; thin.; Designed to make the wearer appear slim. broadly
- 3 Slender; thin.; Long and narrow.
- 4 Slender; thin.; Of a reduced size, with the intent of being more efficient.
- 5 Very small, tiny.
"I'm afraid your chances are quite slim."
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- 6 Bad, of questionable quality; not strongly built, flimsy. Northern-England, Scotland
"A slimly-shod lad;"
- 7 Sly, crafty. South-Africa, obsolete
- 1 being of delicate or slender build wordnet
- 2 small in quantity wordnet
- 1 A surname.
- 2 A male given name.
- 1 A type of cigarette substantially longer and thinner than normal cigarettes.
"I only smoke slims."
- 2 Alternative form of sling (“type of alcoholic mixed drink”) alt-of, alternative
"Crump, having fortified himself with a bobstick of rum slim, moved cautiously among the crowds who bustled along Fleet Street."
- 3 Acronym of short linear motif. abbreviation, acronym, alt-of
- 4 A potato farl. Ireland, regional
- 5 AIDS, or the chronic wasting associated with its later stages. Africa, East, uncountable
"As in the West, only about 50 per cent of patients with slim fully investigated will have a putative pathogen identified."
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- 6 Cocaine. slang, uncountable
- 1 To lose weight in order to achieve slimness. intransitive
- 2 take off weight wordnet
- 3 To make slimmer; to reduce in size. transitive
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”).
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”).
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.
See also for "slim"
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