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Added 9 October 2026

slim

/ˈslɪm/ verb

In Latin: gracilis Wiktionary

verb Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about slim at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

Take off weight.

adjective

Being of delicate or slender build.
she was slender as a willow shoot is slender
Small in quantity.
slender wages

Origin

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.

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)

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