LEANER • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Leaner

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/lˈinər/ Listen

adjective

Lean adj. (compar. leaner; superl. leanest)

Wanting flesh; destitute of or deficient in fat; slim; not plump; slender; meager; thin; lank; as, a lean body; a lean cattle.

Wanting fullness, richness, sufficiency, or productiveness; deficient in quality or contents; slender; scant; barren; bare; mean; used literally and figuratively; as, the lean harvest; a lean purse; a lean discourse; lean wages. "No lean wardrobe." "Their lean and flashy songs." "What the land is, whether it be fat or lean." "Out of my lean and low ability I'll lend you something."

(Typog.) Of a character which prevents the compositor from earning the usual wages; opposed to fat; as, lean copy, matter, or type.

Synonyms: slender; spare; thin; meager; lank; skinny; gaunt.

See images of 'Leaner'

Etymology of 'Leaner'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Leaner" Quotes from Famous Books

... with rice to make us fat, for they were cannibals and meant to eat us. My comrades, who had lost their senses, ate heartily of it, but I very sparingly. They were devoured one by one, and I, with my senses entire, as you may readily guess, grew leaner every day. The fear of death turned all my food into poison. I fell into a sickness which proved my safety, for the negroes, having killed and eaten my comrades, and seeing me to be withered, lean, and sick, put ...

— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan

... they gave us rice on purpose to fatten us, for, being cannibals, their design was to eat us as soon as we grew fat. They did accordingly eat my comrades, who were not aware of their condition; but my senses being entire, you may easily guess that instead of growing fat, as the rest did, I grew leaner every day. The fear of death under which I laboured turned all my food into poison. I fell into a languishing illness which proved my safety, for the black men having killed and eaten up my companions, seeing ...

— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon

... of the people as the fever hides in the mere, 'Waiting only the war-game, the heat of the strife to rise 'As the ague fumes round Oxeney when the rotting reed-bed dries. 'But now we are purged of that fever—cleansed by the letting of blood, 'Something leaner of body—something keener of mood. 'And the men new-freed from the levies return to the fields again, 'Matching a hundred battles, cottar and lord and thane. 'And they talk aloud in the temples where the ancient wargods are. 'They thumb and mock and belittle ...

— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling

... of shape; a dry and lean habit is a better subject for nature's configuration, which the gross and over-fed are too heavy to submit to properly. Just as we find that women who take physic whilst they are with child, bear leaner and smaller but better-shaped and prettier children; the material they come of having been more pliable and easily molded. The reason, however, I ...

— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough