THINNESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does thinness mean? 

• THINNESS (noun)
  The noun THINNESS has 5 senses:

1. relatively small dimension through an object as opposed to its length or width

2. the property of having little body fat

3. the property of being very narrow or thin

4. the property of being scanty or scattered; lacking denseness

5. a consistency of low viscosity

  Familiarity information: THINNESS used as a noun is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• THINNESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Relatively small dimension through an object as opposed to its length or width

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

slenderness; tenuity; thinness

Context example:

the thinness of a rope

Hypernyms ("thinness" is a kind of...):

dimension (the magnitude of something in a particular direction (especially length or width or height))

Antonym:

thickness (the dimension through an object as opposed to its length or width)

Derivation:

thin (of relatively small extent from one surface to the opposite or in cross section)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The property of having little body fat

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

leanness; spareness; thinness

Hypernyms ("thinness" is a kind of...):

bodily property (an attribute of the body)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "thinness"):

scrawniness; skinniness (the bodily property of lacking flesh)

boniness; bonyness; emaciation; gauntness; maceration (extreme leanness (usually caused by starvation or disease))

slenderness; slightness; slimness (the property of an attractively thin person)

wiriness (the property of being lean and tough and sinewy)

Derivation:

thin (lacking excess flesh)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The property of being very narrow or thin

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

fineness; thinness

Context example:

he marvelled at the fineness of her hair

Hypernyms ("thinness" is a kind of...):

narrowness (the property of being narrow; having little width)

Derivation:

thin (very narrow)

Sense 4

Meaning:

The property of being scanty or scattered; lacking denseness

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

spareness; sparseness; sparsity; thinness

Hypernyms ("thinness" is a kind of...):

exiguity; leanness; meagerness; meagreness; poorness; scantiness; scantness (the quality of being meager)

Derivation:

thin ((of sound) lacking resonance or volume)

thin (lacking substance or significance)

Sense 5

Meaning:

A consistency of low viscosity

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Context example:

he disliked the thinness of the soup

Hypernyms ("thinness" is a kind of...):

body; consistence; consistency; substance (the property of holding together and retaining its shape)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "thinness"):

fluidity; fluidness; liquidity; liquidness; runniness (the property of flowing easily)

wateriness (the property of resembling the viscosity of water)

Antonym:

thickness (resistance to flow)

Derivation:

thin (relatively thin in consistency or low in density; not viscous)

 Context examples 

“There I must umbly beg leave to differ from you. Don't you see a thinness in him?”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Close at his heels came the colonel himself, a man rather over the middle size, but of an exceeding thinness.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The smallness of the house and thinness of the walls brought everything so close to her, that, added to the fatigue of her journey, and all her recent agitation, she hardly knew how to bear it.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Her thinness seemed to be the effect of some wasting fire within her, which found a vent in her gaunt eyes.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)