lissom

English

WOTD – 25 May 2020

Etymology

From Middle English lithsum, equivalent to lithe +‎ -some. Doublet of lithesome.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈlɪsəm/

• Audio (RP)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: lis‧som

Adjective

lissom (comparative lissomer, superlative lissomest)

1. Flexible and graceful in movement; lithe.

   Synonyms: limber, lithesome, supple; see also Thesaurus:flexible

   • 1824, Mary Russell Mitford, “A Country Cricket-match”, in Our Village: Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery, London: G[eorge] and W. B. Whittaker, […], →OCLC, page 147:

     Now, our country lads, [...] are so much better made, so much more athletic, and yet so much lissomer—to use a Hampshire phrase, which deserves at least to be good English.

   • 1838, “Conversation V. King of Spain’s Journey—Difference of Ships.”, in Conversations of a Father with His Children, 5th edition, volume II, London: John W[illiam] Parker, […], →OCLC, page 41:

     A brig you see, sir, is much more laboursome in a gale of wind. A Schooner is much lissomer built.

   • 1841, [Joseph Thomas James Hewlett], chapter I, in Theodore [Edward] Hook, editor, Peter Priggins, the College Scout. [...] In Three Volumes, volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, pages 29–30:

     [T]he most striking object was the long array of shoes and boots of all lengths, breadths, and thicknesses; high-lows, low-highs, lace-ups, mud-boots, waders, and snow-boots. If they were not waterproof, as they professed to be, the only question was, as it appeared to me, how they ever got dry and lissome again, when they were once wet.

   • 1843, “M. F. T.”, “Country Pleasures; and therein Chiefly, of Angling and Fly-fishing”, in Bentley’s Miscellany, volume XIII, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 261:

     [Y]onder sly old trout has seen too much of us; there, taking advantage of an escort of the smaller fry, he's off while we speak; and one flap of his lissom tail has carried him ten yards away: [...]

   • 1855, Alfred Tennyson, “The Brook; an Idyl”, in Maud, and Other Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 105:

     Straight, but as lissome as a hazel wand; / Her eyes a bashful azure, and her hair / In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell / Divides threefold to show th'fruit within.

   • 1859, Alfred Tennyson, “Vivien”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC, pages 104–105:

     [A] robe / Of samite without price, that more exprest / Than hid her, clung about her lissome limbs, / In colour like the satin-shining palm / On sallows in the windy gleams of March: [...]

   • 1869, “Art. III.—Comparative Hinduism.”, in The Calcutta Review, volume XLIX, number 98, Calcutta: Barnham, Hill, & Co., […]; London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, […], →OCLC, page 41:

     We do not pretend to say the number of arms the character [Siva] properly demands; but this matters the less, that the lissomest of human beings could not compass the proper pose even for a moment.

   • 1870 April, William Mackay, “A Council of Three”, in William Harrison Ainsworth, editor, The New Monthly Magazine, volume CXLVI, number DXCII, London: Adams and Francis, […], →OCLC, page 475:

     We have the hot women and the passionate men. We have lissome forms clinging. We have hot kisses showered. We have hero and heroine, by the merest accident of course, placed in exciting situations.

   • 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter I, in Wild Life in a Southern County, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC, page 11:

     The joy in life of these animals—indeed, of almost all animals and birds in freedom—is very great. You may see it in every motion: in the lissom bound of the hare, the playful leap of the rabbit, the song that the lark and the finch must sing; [...]

   • 1900, S[amuel] R[utherford] Crockett, “Carnation’s Morning Joy”, in The Stickit Minister’s Wooing, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday & McClure Co., →OCLC, page 90:

     There she was at last—taller, lissomer than ever, her green bag swinging in her hand and a gay lilt of a tune on her lips.

   • 1908 June, L[ucy] M[aud] Montgomery, “A Tempest in the School Teapot”, in Anne of Green Gables, Boston, Mass.: L[ouis] C[oues] Page & Company, published August 1909 (11th printing), →OCLC, page 149:

     It was a little narrow, twisting path, [...] It was fringed in all its length with slim young birches, white-stemmed and lissom boughed; [...]

   • 1923 March, A. Neil Lyons, “‘Please, Sir, the Plumber!’”, in The Strand Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly, volume LXV, London: George Newnes, Limited, […], →OCLC, page 274, column 1:

     At last, with the approach of dusk, the lissom figure of young William hastened past my window-pane, followed by the less lissom figure of big Jock, [...]

   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XI, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:

     Well, let me tell you, Jeeves, and you can paste this in your hat, shapeliness isn't everything in this world. In fact, it sometimes seems to me that the more curved and lissome the members of the opposite sex, the more likely they are to set Hell's foundations quivering.

   • 2004, Arnold Klein, Nagel, San Francisco, Calif.: Browntrout Publishers, →ISBN, page 24:

     What's estimable anyways in human kind? / The lissomest somatics and electest mind / Would perish undistinguished, dealt the selfsame hands / In undernourished epochs or unlettered lands, [...]

   • 2011, Penelope Lively, How It All Began, London: Fig Tree, Penguin Books, →ISBN; republished London: Penguin Books, 2012, →ISBN, page 216:

     In his head, language flows, lithe and lissom, eloquent, all that he would say, all that he would like to tell her of what he has been feeling, what he has been thinking.

   • 2015, Karl Ove Knausgaard, translated by Don Bartlett, Dancing in the Dark [...] Translated from the Norwegian (My Struggle; 4), London: Vintage, →ISBN, page 60:

     By then I would be living in a city somewhere, writing and drinking and living the life. I would have a beautiful slim lissom girlfriend with dark eyes and big breasts.

Alternative forms

• lissome

Derived terms

• lissomly, lissomely
• lissomness, lissomeness

Related terms

• lithe
• lithely
• litheness
• lithesome

Translations

flexible and graceful in movement — see also lithe

• Bulgarian: гъвкав (bg) (gǎvkav), пъргав (bg) (pǎrgav)
• Serbo-Croatian: gibak (sh) m
• Vietnamese: dẻo (vi)

Danish

Adverb

lissom

1. Eye dialect spelling of ligesom.