lean

Slim; not fleshy.

Adjective

  1. Slim; not fleshy.
    • They will now dedicate several hours at the gym every day to be leaner and stronger. - 2024 May 1, ZacharyFurr, “Gym types”, in The In Constant Chronicles:

    Synonyms: lithe svelte willowy gaunt gracile lank lean leansome lithesome lissome rangy sleek slender slight slim slinky swack sylphlike

  2. Having little fat.
    • lean steak cuts
    • The butcher and the porkman painted up only the leanest scrags of meat; the baker, the coarsest of meagre loaves. - 2007, Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, Penguin, →ISBN, page 34:
  3. Having little extra or little to spare; scanty; meagre.
    • a lean budget
    • a lean harvest

    Synonyms: insufficient scarce sparse awanting deficient dismal exiguous geason inadequate lank lean lousy meager measly paltry poor raunchy scant scantling scanty skimpy sleazy slender spare

  4. Having a low proportion or concentration of a desired substance or ingredient.
    • A lean ore hardly worth mining.
    • Running on too lean a fuel-air mixture will cause, among other problems, your internal combustion engine to heat up too much.

    Synonyms: deficient dilute poor

    Antonyms: rich

  5. Of a character which prevents the compositor from earning the usual wages; opposed to fat.
    • lean copy, matter, or type
  6. Efficient, economic, frugal, agile, slimmed-down; pertaining to the modern industrial principles of "lean manufacturing".
    • lean management
    • lean manufacturing
    • Alcoa is now a lean and agile enterprise, after having split last year into two entities.

Origin

From Middle English lene (“lean”), from Old English hlǣne (“lean”), (cognate with Low German leen), perhaps from hlǣnan (“to cause to lean (due to hunger or lack of food)”), from Proto-Germanic *hlainijaną (“to cause to lean”). If so, then related to Old English hlinian, hleonian (“to lean”). Compare Old Norse linr (“mild; soft, limp; weak”), Old High German len (“mild”).

Forms

leaner leanest

Derived

boneless lean beef trimmings lean and mean lean-burn lean client lean finely textured beef leanish leanly leanness lean nitrogen oxide trap leansome lean thinking lean-witted leany superlean ultralean unlean

Noun Entry 2

  1. Meat with no fat on it.
    • Jack Sprat would eat no fat, / His wife would eat no lean. - 1639, or earlier, Anon: Jack Sprat:
  2. An organism that is lean in stature.
    • The intermediates and leans are the predominant morphotypes found at the SE-NHR seamounts […] - 1986, Southwest Fisheries Center (U.S.), Collected Reprints (issue 1)
    • Obese Zuckers, compared to leans, consumed more food under free-feeding conditions. - 2012, Obesity: New Insights for the Healthcare Professional, page 56:

Forms

leans

Noun Entry 3

  1. An inclination away from the vertical.
    • The trees had various leans toward gaps in the canopy.

Origin

From Middle English lenen (“to lean”), from Old English hleonian, hlinian (“to lean, recline, lie down, rest”), from Proto-West Germanic *hlinēn, from Proto-Germanic *hlināną (“to lean, incline”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱley-. Cognate via Proto-Germanic with Middle Dutch leunen (“to lean”), German lehnen (“to lean”); via Proto-Indo-European with climate, cline.

Forms

leans

Synonyms

tilt

Derived

antigravity lean anti-gravity lean gangsta lean gangster lean

Noun US, slang

  1. A recreational drug composed of codeine-promethazine cough syrup mixed with usually soda and associated with the hip-hop culture of the Southern United States.
    • Eyes real tight 'cause I'm chokin' the creep; vision messed up 'cause I'm drinkin' the lean. - 2005, “Stay Fly”, in Jordan Houston, Darnell Carlton, Paul Beauregard, Premro Smith, Marlon Goodwin, David Brown, Willie...
    • "What's in the cup, let me see that / Girl, where the rest of that promethazine at?" / She said, "Cool, gotta run out to my Cadillac though / And I'll be like Fat Joe, and bring the lean back" - 2020, “Those Kinda...

    Synonyms: blood mud purple drank sizzurp snot syrup

Origin

Probably from the verb to lean (see Etymology 1 above), supposedly because consumption of the intoxicating beverage causes one to lean or sway. Alternatively, from a clipping of gasoline (“an alcoholic beverage made of vodka and energy drink”).

Derived

fenty lean

Verb Entry 5

  1. To incline, deviate, or bend, from a vertical position; to be in a position thus inclining or deviating.
    • a leaning column
    • She leaned out of the window.
  2. To incline in opinion or desire; to conform in conduct; often with to, toward, etc.
    • I’m leaning towards voting Conservative in the next election.
    • The Hispanic vote leans Democratic.
    • But you ſay they do not accept of them, but delight rather to lean to their old Cuſtoms and Brehon Laws, though they be more unjuſt and alſo more inconvenient for the common People, as by your late Relation of them I...
  3. To rest or rely, for support, comfort, to use as a hard surface for writing, etc.
    • He lean'd not on his fathers but himself. - 1864, Alfred Tennyson, “Aylmer’s Field”, in Enoch Arden, &c., London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC, page 54:
    • The slightest effort made the patient cough. He would stand leaning on a stick and holding a hand to his side, and when the paroxysm had passed it left him shaking. - 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XLV, in...
  4. To hang outwards.
  5. To press against.
    • Oppreſs'd with Anguiſh, panting, and o'reſpent, / His fainting Limbs against an Oak he leant. - 1697, Virgil, “The Tenth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals,...

Forms

leans leaning leaned leant

Related

climate cline

Derived

forward-leaning forward leaning lean back lean-back leaner lean in leaning leaning board leaning toothpick syndrome leaning tower illusion lean into lean on lean over backwards lean-to lean towards outlean overlean uplean

Verb Entry 6

  1. To thin out (a fuel-air mixture): to reduce the fuel flow into the mixture so that there is more air or oxygen.
    • He leaned the mixture in an effort to cause a backfire through the carburetor, the generally accepted method of breaking the ice loose. - 1938 July, Harold Blaine Miller, Dupont Miller, “Weather Hop”, in Boys' Life, Boy...
    • Even the Pilot's Operating Handbooks (POH) for our training airplanes add to our paranoia with their insistence that we not lean the mixture until we're above 5000 feet density altitude. - 2002 July, Tom Benenson, “Can...

    Synonyms: derich disenrich

    Antonyms: enrich

Forms

leans leaning leaned