slender

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English sclendre, later slendre,^[2][3][4][5] which the MED, Etymonline, Barnhart and Klein take as borrowed from Anglo-Norman esclendre (“thin, slender”).^[2][4][3][5] The Anglo-Norman adjective is recorded from the third quarter of the 12th century.^[6] Barnhart and Klein derive the French word from Old Dutch slinder or Middle Dutch slinder of the same meaning,^[3][5] and Skeat linked it to slinderen (“to drag, trail along”).^[7] The OED, however, calls the origin obscure: an Anglo-Norman source seems most likely, but it found the French form only in Palsgrave (1530), and the Dutch one only in Kilian, who cites the English word beside it.^[8] Weekley thought the Dutch word was probably taken from English,^[9] while Barnhart, following the FEW, argues that the “scl-” cluster points to a borrowing from French into English.^[3] The Oxford Dictionary of English, Hoad and Collins treat it as of unknown origin.^[10][11][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a person, not fat or fleshy; thin, lean: Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, about 1387–95, describes the Reeve as a sclendre colerik man.^[2][3] The OED's first record is from before 1400, in Coer de Lyon.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Chaucer used the word seven times, for "slender" but also "weak" and "meagre".^[13] From the 15th century it was used of things with little thickness or solidity (1444),^[8] and about 1500 it began to denote weakness, or immaturity.^[8] The sense "long and thin", of things, dates from the early 16th century (before 1513),^[8][4] and the figurative senses "weak, slight, insignificant" from the 1520s and 1530s, especially of arguments with little force or grounds (1531, 1562).^[4][8] The sense of small in extent or amount is from 1610.^[8] Later use increasingly implied a graceful slimness of form.^[8] Johnson (1755) defined it first as "thin; small in circumference compared with the length", and took it from Dutch.^[14] In phonetics, slender vowels are narrow or close ones, from 1755;^[8] the term is now used chiefly in Irish phonology.^[12] In Yorkshire dialect a slender animal was a miserably thin one.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 1387–95 – sclendre, in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.^[2][3]
• before 1400 – not stout or fleshy, slim.^[8]
• 1444 – of little thickness or solidity.^[8]
• before 1513 – of things, long and thin.^[8]
• 1531 – of arguments, unconvincing.^[8]
• 1559 – verb, to make thin.^[8]
• 1610 – of small extent or amount.^[8]
• 1755 – of vowels, narrow, close.^[8]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Gracefully thin; slim in build: a slender young dancer.^[12][16][8]
2. Small in width compared with length or height: the slender stem of a wine glass.^[12][8]
3. Small or inadequate in amount or size: They lived on a slender income.^[12][8]
4. Having little foundation; weak or feeble: a slender hope of rescue.^[12][8]
5. (phonetics) Of a vowel, close and front; now chiefly in Irish phonology.^[12][8]

Word family

• slenderly
• slenderness
• slenderize
• unslender
• slender loris

Usage notes

Dictionary.com distinguishes the near-synonyms: slender suggests an attractive, pleasing thinness, slight adds a hint of frailty, and slim a lithe or delicate thinness.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
7. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
16. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
17. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House