slim

Betekenis (Engels)

Adj

1. Slender, thin.
2. Slender, thin.
3. Slender, thin.
4. Slender, thin.
5. Very small, tiny.
6. Bad, of questionable quality; not strongly built, flimsy.
7. (obsolete) Sly, crafty.

Noun

1. A type of cigarette substantially longer and thinner than normal cigarettes.
2. A potato farl.
3. AIDS, or the chronic wasting associated with its later stages.
4. (slang) Cocaine.

Verb

1. To lose weight in order to achieve slimness.
2. To make slimmer; to reduce in size.

Uitgespreek as (IPA)

/slɪm/

Etimologie (Engels)

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.
The pejorative sense found in Low German and Dutch is also found preserved in the archaic English noun slim (“worthless or lazy person”), also comparable to the South African use of the adjective as "crafty, sly."
Compare Dutch slim (“smart, clever, crafty”), Middle High German slimp (“slanting, awry”), German schlimm (“bad”), West Frisian slim (“bad, dire”).