slender
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]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
[edit]- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈslɛndə/
- (General American) enPR: slĕnʹdər, IPA(key): /ˈslɛndɚ/
Audio (US): (file) - Rhymes: -ɛndə(ɹ)
- Hyphenation: slen‧der
Adjective
[edit]slender (comparative slenderer or more slender, superlative slenderest or most slender)
- 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.
- (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.
- (Gaelic languages) Palatalized.
Synonyms
[edit]- (thin): lithe, svelte, willowy; see also Thesaurus:slender
- (meagre): insufficient, scarce, sparse; see also Thesaurus:inadequate
Antonyms
[edit]- (antonym(s) of “palatalized”): broad
- See also Thesaurus:obese
Derived terms
[edit]- 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
[edit]
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Anagrams
[edit]Spanish
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Unadapted borrowing from English slender.
Adjective
[edit]slender m or f (masculine and feminine plural slenderes)
- (Puerto Rico) slender
Usage notes
[edit]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
[edit]- “slender” in Diccionario de americanismos, Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española, 2010
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Old Dutch
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/ɛndə(ɹ)
- Rhymes:English/ɛndə(ɹ)/2 syllables
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- Spanish terms borrowed from English
- Spanish unadapted borrowings from English
- Spanish terms derived from English
- Spanish lemmas
- Spanish adjectives
- Spanish epicene adjectives
- en:Linguistics