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Thinner   /θˈɪnər/   Listen
Thinner

noun
1.
A diluting agent.  Synonyms: diluent, dilutant.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Thinner" Quotes from Famous Books



... a timid, servile creature, rubbing his hands nervously, and suspecting mischief. He was a rat in trouble. He had thin brown hair, neatly brushed and plastered down, so as to make it look still thinner, and his face was the average narrow cunning face of the dishonest man-servant. It had an ounce of wile in it to a pound or two of servility. He seemed just the sort of rogue meanly to join in an underhand conspiracy, and then meanly to back out of it. ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... "until I saw you and Miriam play basketball this afternoon. I was crazy to play, too. But imagine how I'd look on the field. I couldn't run six yards without puffing. I'm going to try to get thinner, and perhaps some day I can ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower

... other for who can say how long—a year—a million years seems more probable—but still only an instant in the life of a star—they begin to draw apart, and the flaming column is stretched out, and ever thinner it grows, and the two stars at last separate. But now the gas will never fall back into the sun. Like some giant flaming cigar it reaches out into space and it will stay thus, for it has been set in rotation about the sun at such a speed as is needed to form an orbit. The giant mass ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell

... It was thinner than the face which Edith remembered, and it seemed to her as if it had been worn down by some illness. If so, it must have been the same cause which had imparted to those features the refinement and high bearing which were now visible there. There was the same broad brow ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille

... extremely delicate test as to the collective quantity of individually invisible particles in a liquid. Commencing with distilled water, for example, a thick slice of light is necessary to make the polarisation of its suspended particles sensible. A much thinner slice suffices for common water; while, with Bruecke's precipitated mastic, a slice too thin to produce any sensible effect with most other liquids, suffices to bring ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... grown slightly older and thinner, Billy Duncan appeared, with his blond hair and large childish blue eyes ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook

... had swallowed some animal. Years after he was taken ill, and came home. His hunger for food was so great that he could scarcely be satisfied, and notwithstanding the great quantities of food which he consumed, he became thinner and thinner, and his hunger was accompanied with great pain. Doctors could do him no good. At length he met with a skilly old man, who told him that there was an animal in his stomach, and advised him to procure a salt herring and eat it raw, and on no account to take any drink, but go at ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier

... asked Jack, in a voice that vibrated unpleasantly. There was a dangerous light in his eyes; his lips grew thinner and whiter. One by one a dozen franc-tireurs stepped from behind the trees on every side, rifles shimmering in the subdued afternoon haze—wiry, gloomy-eyed men, their sleeveless sheepskin jackets belted in with leather, their sombre caps and trousers thinly banded with orange ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers

... was being hard pressed on the low kopjes to the northward, and his line became thinner every moment as he endeavoured to meet the continual attempts upon his flanks. Two Boer guns shelled steadily the much exposed 8th brigade from various points, and when about 8 a.m. a pom-pom, joining in the bombardment, killed with its first discharges ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... had brought the firemen on the ground, but the mob would not let them approach the burning houses. The flames had communicated with the adjoining block and were now making fearful headway. At length Engineer Decker addressed the mob, which by this time had grown thinner by the main mass moving farther down town, who told them that everything relating to the provost marshal's office was destroyed, and now the fire was destroying private property, some of which doubtless belonged to persons friendly ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley

... by saying the first sentence, which is repeated by each player in turn. The leader in every case adds the new line, which is repeated by the other players in succession. Anyone making a mistake or omission drops out of the contest. As the ranks grow thinner, the players are required to repeat the sentences more rapidly, and no time for hesitation allowed. The one who makes no mistake is entitled ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain

... passed off, leaving Vandover exhausted, his nerves all jangling, his health impaired. Every day he seemed to grow thinner, great brown hollows grew under his eyes, and the skin of his forehead looked blue and tightly drawn. By degrees a deep gloom overcame him permanently, nothing could interest him, nothing seemed worth while. Not only were his nerves out of ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... to admire my hair, Violet," she said. "There are a few gray hairs, but you would hardly notice them; but my hair is much thinner than it used to be, and I don't think I could ever have made up my mind to wear false hair. It never quite matches one's own. I have seen Lady Ellangowan wearing three distinct heads of hair; and yet ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon

... The New Edition at 1s. 6d. will, of course, be printed on thinner paper, but still the type will appear perfectly distinct. It is almost unnecessary to state, that only an enormous sale can reimburse the Publishers in issuing an edition at so low a price as 1s. 6d.; still, Messrs. WARD and LOCK feel assured that their good intentions will ...
— The Royal Picture Alphabet • Luke Limner

... process of evolution followed similar lines. At one time forms like yours were the ruling and guiding intelligences of Mars. They were, however, a highly specialized form. As conditions changed, the form changed. The head and chest grew larger as the air grew thinner until the enfeebled trunk and limbs could no longer support their weight. Gradually the form died out ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek

... it was written on his face, where the image of God shone dim that had once been crowned there. Hair thinner, and very gray; the rich, dark eyes intimidated, as if manly confidence was gone; the skin no more the pure scroll of regular life written in the healthy fluid of the heart, but faded, yet spotted with ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... steep stairs. Bobbie was pale and shivering. Peter's face looked thinner than usual. Phyllis was red-faced ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit

... dish, cover it with a tolerably thick crust, and bake it in a slow oven. When done, fill it up with gravy, and do not cut it till quite cold. Use a very sharp knife for this purpose, first cutting out a large piece, and going down to the bottom of the dish: thinner slices may afterwards be cut. The different colours, and the clear jelly, will have a beautiful marbled appearance. A small pie may be made to eat hot, and will have a good appearance, if seasoned high with oysters, mushrooms, truffles ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... her hand, and led her to the nursery. The baby was awake, sitting in its nurse's lap, and looking bright, but so much thinner and paler than before her fall, that tears sprang to Lulu's eyes, and she could scarce refrain ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley

... recovered the effects of being so nearly drowned, and in the readier apprehension caused by accumulated troubles his mother began to doubt if ever he would be well again. He had got a good deal thinner; his food did not seem to nourish him; and his being seemed slipping away from the hold of the world. He was full of dreams and fancies, all of the higher order of things where love is the law. He did not read ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... through grassy lanes leading to the city— Thinner grow the green trees and thicker grows the dust; Ever, though, to little people any path is pretty So it leads to newer lands, as they know it must. Some go to singing less; some go to list'ning; Some go to thinking over ever-nobler ...
— The Book of Joyous Children • James Whitcomb Riley

... Job, who had sometimes pulled a tub upon the homely Cam, got out his oar. In another minute the boat's head was straight on to the ever-nearing foam, towards which she plunged and tore with the speed of a racehorse. Just in front of us the first line of breakers seemed a little thinner than to the right or left—there was a cap of rather deeper water. I turned ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... others go on ahead; we will follow fifty yards behind you. If you hear anyone coming, give a low whistle; we will then turn off the light. You can walk on confidently, for there is no chance of any of these prickly creepers running across the path. When you see the trees are getting thinner, or that there is an opening before you, stop and send back word to us, so that we can shut up the lantern ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty

... dreams, they had seen and done innumerable things together, always in perfect confidence, in perfect understanding. Yet now, when she saw him afresh, all was different. Keith was different. He was browner, thinner, less warm in manner; and more familiar, too, as though he were sure of her. His clothes were different, and his carriage. He was not the same man. It was still Keith, still the man Jenny loved; but as though he were also somebody else whom she was meeting for the first time. Her love, the ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton

... Damon came in about luncheon-time. He apologized for not coming before since her return, but he had been a little upset, and his work was more and more interesting. His eyes were bright and his manner had quite the usual calm, but he looked pale and thinner, and so exhausted that Edith ran immediately for a glass of wine, and began to upbraid him for not ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... would not be comforted, and for several months he went about as if he were trying to find the moon, as we say; and though he read his books and made progress, he was always sad and wretched, and grew much thinner, so that Mariuccia said he was consuming himself, and I thought he must be in love. But ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford

... my heart! So I see thee again after such a long separation! And you are like yourself—a little thinner than when I last saw you; but how's everything now, ...
— Lucky Pehr • August Strindberg

... through together being one less than were printed for the underlay. These printed sheets are used for "overlays," which are very much like an underlay except that much more care is taken in marking any uneven places. A thinner paper is used to bring up the low places in the plates. An impression of the form is then made on the manila paper sheet which had, as before mentioned, been drawn around the cylinder, and on this printed ...
— The Building of a Book • Various

... study, and noticed that the handsome face was thinner, and the dark lines under the eyes betrayed the suffering through which he ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford

... at the College of Surgeons.[2] He maintains that the diminution of the jaw in civilized races can only have been brought about by inheritance of the effects of lessened use. But if English jaws are lighter and thinner than those of Australians and Negroes, so too is the rest of the skull. As the diminution in the weight and thickness of the walls of the cranium cannot well be ascribed to disuse, it must be attributed to some other cause; and this cause may have affected the jaw also. ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball

... become thinner, and was very pale; her head had been shaved close, and there was nothing between the broad white border of her nightcap and her clammy brow and wan cheek. But illness was more becoming to Anty than health; it gave ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... stele of Byblos, and on the sarcophagus of Eshmunazar (about 300 B.C.). The most numerous inscriptions come from the excavations in Carthage, the ancient colony of Sidon. One general feature characterizes them all, though they differ somewhat in detail. The symbols become longer and thinner; in fact, cease to be the script of monuments and become the script of a busy trading people. While the Phoenician alphabet was thus fertile in developing daughter alphabets in the West, the progress of writing was no less great in the East, first among the Semitic peoples, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... Cream Sauce (see Cream Toast). The thickness of White Sauce for vegetables depends upon the kind of vegetable. The thinner sauce is generally more satisfactory ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer

... alcohol is colored, so that you can see it easily, Dan'l, that's all. The quicksilver, or the alcohol, is put into a little bulb and up from this bulb there runs a tube. That tube is awfully thin, sometimes a hundred times thinner than a hair. When a tube is as thin as that, even a tiny amount of expansion or contraction will make the quicksilver run up the tube or down. If you watch that thermometer I've got in that white shelter over there, Dan'l, you can easily tell when it's hotter and colder. It's nearly ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler

... from the North in a few days looking, if possible, thinner and more careworn than when he went. He had found the strike a very stubborn business. Burrows was riding the storm triumphantly; and while upon his own side Tressady looked in vain for a "man," there was a dogged determination ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... shook my hand enthusiastically. I saw that he was even thinner than before. Was he, I wondered, "infernally hungry" at this ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche

... Laura consoled themselves with their favorite employments, unconscious that Nan was growing paler, thinner, and more silent, as the weeks went by, till one day she dropped quietly before them, and it suddenly became manifest that she was utterly worn out with many cares and the secret suffering of a tender heart bereft of the paternal love which had ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... the fire with Ginger edging close to the leg that the gander had once damaged and which, now, acted as an indicator for Peter's moods. When he did not want to talk his "leg ached." When his heart sank in despair his "leg ached." But Polly, a little thinner, a little more dim as to far-off visions, caught every mood of Peter's and sent it back upon him like a boomerang. She met his silent hours with such a flare of talk that Peter responded in self-defence. His black hours she clutched desperately and held them up for him to ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock

... some boisterous fellow had jammed his hat over his eyes, and that others had hustled him a little; but he had not been hurt, and he did not feel like quarreling, just then. He pushed along through the throng, and was getting out to where the crowd was thinner, when he suddenly felt a chill and a weak feeling at his heart. He had thrust his ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard

... fight none of us bishop's men went, for we had done our part. But we lay and saw the Danes charge again and again against odds, their line growing thinner each time, until our men swept the last of them from the bank into the ooze, and there ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... Coombe waiting for them on the veranda. Lying back in the shade, in her white dress she looked very much at her ease. Yet a quick observer might have noticed a certain anxiety in the glance she tried to render merely welcoming. She was thinner than she had been; tired lines dragged at the corners of the pouting mouth and dark circles showed plainly through their dusting of pearl powder. Changes which creep in unnoticed when one sees a person every day are startlingly apparent ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... self-sacrificing devotion is perfectly admirable; but what is more admirable still is the way in which she conceals the suffering that she endures from her parents. Noble-hearted girl! she is calm and silent, but she has always been so. She has grown thinner, and perhaps her cheek is a trifle paler, but her forehead was burning and seemed to scorch my lips as I kissed her. With this exception, however, there was nothing else about her that would betray her tortures. Modeste, her maid, ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... that name, Maggie darling; call me grandma, as you used to do—call me grandma still," and smoothing back the long black tresses, she looked to see if grief had left its impress upon her fair young face. It was paler now, and thinner too, than it was wont to be, and while her tears fell fast upon it, Madam Conway whispered: "You have suffered much, my child, and so have I. Why did you go away? Say, Margaret, why did you ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... of that name, and communicates with the right bank by means of a large hanging bridge (Puente de Soga). These bridges are composed of four ropes (sogas) made of twisted cow-hide, and about the thickness of a man's arm. The four ropes are connected together by thinner ones of the same material, fastened over them transversely. The whole is covered with branches, straw, and roots of the Agave tree. On either side, a rope rather more than two feet above the bridge serves as a balustrade. The sogas are ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... the east, where a sort of inner glow seemed to illuminate the haze and make it thinner and more penetrable. They shouldered their packs and again Pink led the way. He advanced, now, with a certain care. From the tree he counted a hundred paces to the right, and called ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton

... the school, and its virtue, my Kate. Let any one of these wonderful children—wonderful as you thought Sisty himself—stay at home, and you will see its head grow bigger and bigger, and its body thinner and thinner—eh, Mr. Squills?—till the mind take all nourishment from the frame, and the frame, in turn, stint or make sickly the mind. You see that noble oak from the window. If the Chinese had brought it up, it would have been a tree in miniature at five years old, and at ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... N. Y., stands a hill of considerable size, and the most elevated of any in the neighborhood. On the west side of this hill, not far from the top, under a stone of considerable size, lay the plates, deposited in a stone box; this stone was thick and rounded in the middle on the upper side, and thinner toward the edges, so that the middle part of it was visible above the ground, but the edge all round was covered with earth. Having removed the earth and obtained a lever, which I got fixed under the edge of the stone, and with a little exertion raised it up, I looked in, and there, indeed, did ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... bark told him the Girl was coming, and between the trees he saw the dog race to meet her and she bent to stroke his head. She wore the same dress and appeared even paler and thinner. The Harvester hurried up the bank, wiping ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter

... long walk. He could never remember, afterward, whether it was day or night. But during it he thought out a new scene, and ran miles to get back and get it down. He grew thinner and more hollow-eyed each day, but he cared for nothing but accomplishing this thing. He knew the act was good. He felt sure Miss Harper ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke

... methods of jointing with loose tongues, viz., the use of the cross tongue, Fig. 103 A, and the use of the feather tongue, Fig. 103 B. Cross tongues are the stronger when glued in their position and can be used very much thinner than feather tongues. Feather tongues are cut diagonally across the grain ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham

... altered since we met with him in the last series of this work, except that he had grown somewhat paler and thinner, and that his hair had changed from iron-gray to snow-white, threw himself in the armchair beside ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... dangerous, I suppose. Take a chair, won't you? You can find a place for your hat and coat right on the table there. Well," he added, settling back on the pillows and looking at Vandover pleasantly, "I think you've grown thinner since the last time ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... man, your fair city is stung," declared Ferris. "The trenches are not so deep as specified by two feet, and from their width I can tell that the foundation walls are to be at least six inches thinner. I bid on the best grade of Portland cement for that job. It was spelled with a B, however, in my copy of the specification, and I asked your man Scales about it. 'Oh,' said he, 'that's a misprint in the typewriting,' and he changed the B to P with a lead pencil. Under that shed are about ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester

... too," said Rap; "but now I see a difference. The body and bill of the Nuthatch is stouter, and not such a pretty shape, and his bill almost turns up. This Warbler is thinner, with a slender bill that curves a little down, like the Brown Creeper's. Then too, he has smaller and finer stripes than ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues

... oughtn't I? But I'll make up for it, my darling; I promise I will. Give me just a little time to get quite well and strong; I shall not be a bother for long. Old Rob says he can make a job of me. Then you shall see what care I will take of you. You are looking thinner. It must have been a dull time for you, but we'll make up for ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay

... qualifies, by plunging into, rather than "emerging from Carlyle's soul-confusing labyrinths of speculative radicalism." The radicalism that we hear much about today, is not Emerson's kind—but of thinner fiber—it qualifies itself by going to A "root" and often cutting other roots in the process; it is usually impotent as dynamite in its cause and sometimes as harmful to the wholesome progress of all causes; it is qualified by its failure. But the Radicalism of Emerson plunges to all roots, ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... existence, but it was the youngest and feeblest thing in the nation. It had not yet spoken a word. It had to be taught, developed, and made fit for the service of the irritable business world. All manner of discs had to be tried, some smaller and thinner than a dime and others of steel boiler-plate as heavy as the shield of Achilles. In all the books of electrical science, there was nothing to help Bell and Watson in this journey they were making through an unknown country. They were as chartless as Columbus was ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson

... the same. She seemed slightly thinner now, yet not less beautiful. Her eyes were dark and brilliant as ever. The clear features of her face were framed in the roll of her heavy locks, as I had seen them last. Her garb, as usual, betokened luxury. ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... tea-room and had given their order, they talked in an embarrassed fashion about their recent letters, both of them carefully quiet and restrained. Finally Hugh shoved his plate and cup aside and looked straight at her for the first time. She was thin, much thinner than she had been a year ago, but there was something sweeter about her, too; she seemed ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks

... Charley, and cautiously they began to make their way toward the point whence the sound had come. Sheltering themselves behind trees, they advanced rod after rod. The stillness remained unbroken. The stand of trees grew thinner, with more and more underbrush. Presently they saw before them an unmistakable clearing in the forest. Rapidly they advanced, screened by the bushes, until they stood close to the edge of the clearing. Beyond question somebody had ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... wilt thou weep and be soft and cherish a pleasure in pain, When the days and their task are before thee and awhile thou must work for twain? O face, thou shalt lose yet more of thy fairness, be thinner no doubt, And be waxen white and worn by the day that he cometh out! Hand, how pale thou shalt be! how changed from the sunburnt hand That he kissed as it handled the rake in the noon ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris

... the flume had expanded him in a curious kind of way. His own arguments while he was fighting for his life had, in a way, convinced himself. She was a rare creature, and she was alluring— more alluring than she had ever been; for a tragic sense had made her thinner, had refined the boldness of her beauty, had given a wonderful lustre to her eyes; and suffering has its own attraction to the degenerate. But he, George Masson, had had a great shock, and he had come out of the jaws of death by the skin of his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... life told in a few dry sentences! Could more have been expected! The mother had expected more and would not cease to expect it. He was her lost one found again, the child of her body who in his long absence had gotten a second nature; but it was nothing but a colour, a garment, which would wear thinner and thinner, and by-and-by reveal the old deeper ineradicable nature beneath. So she imagined, and would take him out to walk to be with him, to have him all to herself, to caress him, and they would walk, she with an arm round his neck or ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson

... the mouth which he did not feel satisfied with it added character to the face, but he somehow felt that it betokened a nature not easily led, not so gentle and pliable as he could have wished. It shut so very firmly and the under lip was a little thinner and straighter than the other and receded a little from it, giving the impression that Erica had borne much suffering, ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... cat's food as well as his own; and as this highway robbery took place in the retirement of the shed, where Samantha Ann always swept them for their meals, no human being was any the wiser, and only the angels saw the white cat getting whiter and whiter and thinner and thinner, while every day Rags grew more corpulent and aldermanic in his figure. But as his stomach was more favorably located than an alderman's, he could still see the surrounding country, and he had the further advantage of possessing four legs (instead of two) ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... shall be well. For that redness of the cheek is but the sign of the fever which, after the Grecians, we do call the hectical; and that shining of the eyes is but a sickly glazing, and they which do every day get better and likewise thinner and weaker shall find that way leadeth to the church-yard gate. This is the malady which the ancients did call tubes, or the wasting disease, and some do name the consumption. A disease whereof most that fall ailing do perish. This Margaret ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... of nothingness, into which his soul had plunged so many times already? Down, down, to what unplumbed depths had it gone, those other times? True, it had come back. But it had brought no tidings of that dumb, black vast into which it had sunk. And thinner and thinner had grown the thread that had drawn it back from that unsensed abyss until now he knew that it was ready to break. His soul was numb with the conviction that, let it be thrust once more over the brink, it would ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly

... embarrassment. Had he the pluck for this, the nerve to carry it through? That was the only question. There was no doubt as to what he ought to do. It would be an awkward call, to put it mildly. It would be skating on terribly thin ice —a little thinner, perhaps, than a man ever ...
— A Love Story Reversed - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... of the moon appeared from the Greenwich observations discussed by Airy in 1865[921] to be 4" smaller than when directly measured; and the effect would be explicable by refraction in a lunar atmosphere 2,000 times thinner than our own at the sea-level. But the difference was probably illusory. It resulted in part, if not wholly, from the visual enlargement by irradiation of the bright disc of the moon. Professor Comstock, employing the 16-inch Clark equatoreal of the Washburn Observatory, found ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... and immediately disappeared. These hidden pitfalls were set very thick at the entrance of the bridge, so that throngs of people no sooner broke through the cloud, but many of them fell into them. They grew thinner, towards the middle, but multiplied and lay closer together towards the end of the arches that ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... suspicious; nor is this much to be wondered at, for during the last two days every domicile has been searched in this Quarter from attic to cellar, and every street swarms with denouncers and soldiers. As we approached Menilmontant the crowd became thinner, and the soldiers more numerous, until they almost lined the street on either side. Here and there were piles of broken arms and heaps of National Guard coats and trousers. The road was literary strewn with caps, which had been torn from ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy

... But the feet of all three slipped from under them, and down they went again with a tremendous impact. The warriors were on the underside, and Henry fell upon them. There was a rending crash, as the ice, thinner at that point, owing to the protection of the island, broke beneath ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... in the valley all day long, the crackling of the rifles, the thudding of the great guns, and the occasional charge of horsemen. The curtain of smoke hung nearly always. Sometimes it grew thicker, and sometimes it became thinner, but Sheridan's mind was not upon these things, they were merely the veil before him, while behind it, as a screen, he arranged the men on his chess board. When night came his whole line was pushed forward. His vanguard ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler

... motive no doubt deserves respect, but the force which it once possessed it possesses no longer. The uncertainty which once affected only the more instructed extends now to all classes of society. A superficial crust of agreement, wearing thinner day by day, is undermined everywhere by a vague misgiving; and there is an unrest which will be satisfied only when the sources of it are probed to the core. The Church authorities repeat a series of phrases which they are pleased to call answers to objections; they treat the most serious grounds ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... Fig. 126 the shading lines commence at the upper margin, and are heaviest there, the lines gradually growing thinner and ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe

... white mist suffused towards the east by a tremulous golden glow, through which the tops of stony koppies stood up like gigantic beacons. From the dense mist would come strange sounds—snorts, gruntings, bellows, and the thunder of countless hoofs. Presently this great curtain would grow thinner, then it would melt, as the smoke from a pipe melts into the air, and for miles on miles the wide rolling country interspersed with bush opened to the view. But it was not tenantless as it is now, for as far as the eye could ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard

... snod [neat] again i' the mornin'!" he said. "Noo, we'll theek [thatch] ye, an' feed ye!" said Jock comprehensively. So saying, he put other layers of heather, thinner than the mattress underneath, but arranged in the same way, on the top ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett

... with them to Mars. The temperature is a little colder there than on Earth and the air a little thinner. So Terra dames complain one mink coat doesn't keep them warm; they ...
— Mars Confidential • Jack Lait

... is Mr. Raleigh, is it?" she said. "He looks as if he had made the acquaintance of Siva the Destroyer. There's nothing left of him. Is he taller, or thinner, or graver, or darker, or what? My dear Kate, your cousin, that promised to be such a hero, has become a mere man-of-business. Did you ever burn firecrackers? You have probably found some that just fizzed out, then." And Mrs. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... how thin and clear, And thinner, clearer, farther going! O sweet and far from cliff and scar The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: Blow, bugle; ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education

... began to look thinner and discouraged. Her heart ached to add something good to eat to his meagre purchase, but her courage failed at the act. She did not dare affront him. She ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry

... faces alter! I did not know you. You look older! Your hair has grown much grayer and thinner, And you stoop a ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... Mrs. Strickland before I left. I had not seen her for some time, and I noticed changes in her; it was not only that she was older, thinner, and more lined; I think her character had altered. She had made a success of her business, and now had an office in Chancery Lane; she did little typing herself, but spent her time correcting the work of the four girls she employed. She had had the ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... his wife and his only child, Richard, Jr., lived in the Mitchell mansion, which, save for a new coat of paint, was unchanged. Mostyn himself was considerably altered in appearance. There were deeper lines in his face; he was thinner, more given to nervousness and loss of sleep; his hair was turning gray; he had been told by his doctor that he worried too much and that ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... breeze set a thousand little waves to dancing. The clouds became thinner and more transparent although still covering the sky. The wind swept lightly and freely over the entire surface of the sea, but the clouds remained motionless, and seemed to be plunged ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky

... thinner. She sang Stradella's Chanson D'Eglise, and Lucy could hardly speak when we came out of church. 'Oh, what a wonderful voice,' she said, 'do you think she regrets?' 'Whatever we do we regret,' I answered, not because I thought the observation original, but because ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore

... true to his character. Both men were doing exactly that which was to have been expected of them. So at least Clara Amedroz now assured herself. She did not ask herself how it was that she had come to love the thinner and the meaner of the two men, but she knew well that such ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope

... He had grown older, surprisingly older. There were deeper lines about his eyes. His face was thinner. He saw, now, that Philip's lightness had been but a passing flash of his old buoyancy, that the old life and sparkle had gone from him. Two years, he judged, had woven things into Philip's life which he could not understand, ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood

... her at dinner, was introduced to me, and I was told that she was Marie's intimate friend, and that the two lived together whenever Marie returned to Montmartre. She was known as La Glue, her real name was Victorine, she had sat for Manet's picture of Olympe, but that was years ago. The face was thinner, but I recognised the red hair and the brown eyes, small eyes set closely, reminding one of des petits verres de cognac. Her sketch-book was being passed round, and as it came into my hands I noticed that she did not wear stays ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... thinner, Charles says, than most hounds in good training: when dogs get fat, they become lazy, lose the faculty of finding game, and the inclination of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 560, August 4, 1832 • Various

... like one of Shackleton's penguins. Then I went back to the glass again, actually whistling a tune! Except for the black patch over my eye, I appeared very much the same as I used to do before the war. My shoulder is practically straight now. I am a little thinner, and perhaps my face bears traces of suffering, but in general ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn

... disease, terrible pains shot through his head and neck; he could not swallow. It was a slow starvation; the torment kept him awake through night after night, and only occasionally his very exhaustion gave him a little relief so that he slept. Thinner and thinner he became, and his whole mouth was turned into a putrid, horrible sore. But yet he never murmured. Brother Jasper knelt by his bed, ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham

... Lucy," said he, mournfully, "and your cheek is much thinner than it was when I first saw you. When I first saw you! Ah! would for your sake that that had never been! Your spirits were light then, Lucy; your laugh came from the heart, your step spurned the earth. Joy broke from your eyes, ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... according as one stream brought down one kind of material and another stream contributed another material; but in all cases the materials will bear ample evidence that they were produced, sorted, and deposited by running water. The finer beds of clay or sand will all be arranged in thicker or thinner layers or laminae; and if there are any beds of pebbles these will all be rounded or smooth, just like the water-worn pebbles of any brook-course. In all probability, also, we should find in some of the beds the remains of fresh-water shells or plants or other organisms which inhabited ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson

... answer. His hands clasped now at the back of his head, his eyes were resting thoughtfully upon the bright, brave face before him, a thinner face than it had been used to be, more hollow about the temples where the wavy hair clung closely; upon the swaddled figure which, only a year before, had tramped the Colorado mountains, lording ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... had furnished it with a covering quite sufficient to protect it from the cold; but I thought that it must then be a great deal too warm in summer, and had just commenced fanning it, when she explained to me that the fur was a great deal thinner in summer than in winter. This satisfied me; and releasing the astonished kitten from its numerous wrappers, I presented them to Holly, and gave up all idea of furnishing it ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman

... changed," continued Coronado, when he had submitted to the old man's persistence. "She has grown thinner and sadder. You must not notice it, however; you must ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... lingered and delayed And wouldn't go away— And shet himself in his room and stayed A-writin' from day to day; And kep' a-gittin' stranger still, And thinner all the time, You know, as any feller will ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... the first floor and stopped at the fourth. That was the window he must enter. Noiselessly he crept along the walls, stopping now and then to listen. There was no sound except the monotonous dripping of the rain, which was growing thinner and colder. ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... thinner, and an isolated house, to which a side-road leads, appears at no great distance off. The horse, left to itself, follows this new path; it enters through an open gate, and, panting and foaming, comes to a dead halt before a ponderous oak door studded with huge iron nails. Presently Liso recovers. ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... gibbets. Let me see: he has no money, I know, but what he gets from that bookseller. What bookseller, by the by? Ah, rare thought! I'll find out, and cut off that supply. My lady wife's cheek will look somewhat thinner next month, I fancy—he! he! But 't is a pity, for she is a glorious creature! Who knows but I may serve two purposes? However, one at present! business first, and pleasure afterwards; and, faith, the business is damnably like that ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Cambridge—anyhow above the roof of King's College Chapel—there is a difference. Out at sea a great city will cast a brightness into the night. Is it fanciful to suppose the sky, washed into the crevices of King's College Chapel, lighter, thinner, more sparkling than the sky elsewhere? Does Cambridge burn not only into the night, but into ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... echo far: Each ready archer grasped his bow, But by the flourish soon they know, They breathed no point of war. Yet cautious, as in foeman's land, Lord Marmion's order speeds the band, Some opener ground to gain; And scarce a furlong had they rode, When thinner trees, receding, showed A little woodland plain. Just in that advantageous glade, The halting troop a line had made, As forth from the opposing ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... for sailors. I saw many of my old companions there and amongst them was a girl called Bella Lewis, who used to come often to see Kitty Jones in Bryn Street. She wasn't a bad sort altogether, very kind-hearted and merry. She was altered a good deal since I saw her last, she looked older and thinner, but she was laughing and dancing as lively as ever. As soon as she caught sight of me, she came to me, and I think she was real glad to see me, because she thought I had been kind to her once when she was ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... suddenly, "There's something I want to speak to you about: I have been worrying about it for some little time, and it's a bad thing to do that. I daresay it is all nonsense, but I am bothered about the Father. I don't think he is well, and I don't think he thinks he is well. He is much thinner, you know, and he isn't in good spirits. I don't mean that he isn't cheerful in a way, but it's an effort to him. Now, ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... come to my girl! She goes out all the time; she accepts every invitation; gives herself no rest; yet never seems to enjoy herself anywhere. She grows paler and thinner every day, and there is a hectic spot on her cheeks and a feverish brightness in her eyes that I do not like at all. I have seen them before, and I have too much reason to know them! I do believe she is fretting ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... into the cathedral. The air is cold and still, and heavy with the scent of the Christmas trees brought from the forest for the pleasure of the children. Day by day you see the rows of them growing thinner, and if you go to the market on Christmas Eve itself you will find only a few trees left out in the cold. The market is empty, the peasants are harnessing their horses or their oxen, the women are packing up their unsold goods. In every home in the city one of the trees that ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... fragments of obsidian, about three inches long and two inches wide, were inserted; and as these were keenly sharp the weapon was a most ferocious one. The sword that I held in my hand was identical in its essential features with this primitive design; but it was shorter, narrower, and thinner. What was still more extraordinary about it was that, while it seemed to be made of brass, it had the bright glitter of gold and the temper and the elasticity of steel. Being tested by bending, it instantly sprung straight again; ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... the poor boy carefully shook out and gathered up the few crumbs in his wallet so that not one of them should be lost; and how slowly he ate them, as if to prolong the sensation of being gratified! During the two days which he had spent in the forest his face had grown perceptibly thinner, and his strength had certainly diminished. Even the reckless look of defiant joviality, which was one of the boy's chief characteristics, had given place to a restless anxiety that prevented his seeing humour in anything, and ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne

... express any surprise at his return, as another girl would, but stood with her hands still clasped in front of her, and a look of entreaty in her eyes. Colwyn noticed that her face had grown thinner, and that in the depths of her glance there lurked ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees

... at an end. In the evening of that same day Lois left her seclusion and came down-stairs for the first time. She was languid enough yet to be obliged to move slowly, and her cheeks had not got back their full colour, and were thinner than they used to be; otherwise she looked well, and Mrs. Wishart contemplated her with great satisfaction. Somewhat to Lois's vexation, or she thought so, they found Mr. DilIwyn down-stairs also. ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner

... depth increased, the impressions became less numerous, but the adhering particles of sand more and more numerous, until at last it was evident that the bottom consisted of a smooth sandy layer: to carry on the analogy of the turf, the blades of grass grew thinner and thinner, till at last the soil was so sterile, that nothing sprang from it. From these observations, confirmed by many others, it may be safely inferred that the utmost depth at which corals can construct reefs is between 20 and 30 fathoms. ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... gravest pitch of the chime. Next there could be heard the baritone buzz of a holly tree. Below these in force, above them in pitch, a dwindled voice strove hard at a husky tune, which was the peculiar local sound alluded to. Thinner and less immediately traceable than the other two, it was far more impressive than either. In it lay what may be called the linguistic peculiarity of the heath; and being audible nowhere on earth off a heath, it afforded ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... I know you from having seen you at the Towers. Lady Cumnor is a good deal thinner than she was, but we hope her health is better ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... and more distant bodies be from that, the more pure and subtile they are, and the more pure and subtile they be, the more action, virtue, and efficacy they have. The earth stands like a dead lump but the sea moves, and the air being thinner and purer than both, moves more easily and swiftly. But go up higher and still the motion is swifter, and the virtue and influence is the more powerful. What is a dead body when the soul and spirit is out of it? ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... the Connage house. ROSALIND is alone, sitting on the lounge staring very moodily and unhappily at nothing. She has changed perceptibly—she is a trifle thinner for one thing; the light in her eyes is not so bright; she looks easily a ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... jauntiness and grew sordid and soiled and shabby and humble; the signora looked like a sulky, dirty, draggle-tailed fury, ready to break out into violence on the slightest provocation; poor Marianina got paler and thinner, and Barty was very unhappy about her. The only things left rosy about her were her bruised nose, and her fingers, that always seemed stiff with cold; indeed, they were blue rather ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... any premonition of this change. After the monoplane had reached the high ground, Norman could not resist a temptation to make his way some miles back from the river, where the boys could see that the sparse timber grew very much thinner and that within five miles of the river the timberland disappeared altogether in a wide prairie or plain. Still farther to the east, they could make out irregular elevations on the plain, which ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler

... as they approached the palace, the crowd grew thinner. When they got close to it no one was seen standing about the gates,—the usual guards wore not there,—nor were they challenged as they entered. The silence which reigned everywhere was ominous. ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston

... you have found the form unfavourable to an observer. The hives being too wide, two parallel combs were made by the bees, consequently whatever passed between them escaped observation. From this inconvenience, which I have experienced, you recommended much thinner hives to naturalists, where the panes should be so near each other, that only a single row of combs could be erected between them. I have followed your admonitions, Sir, and provided hives only eighteen lines in width, in which I have found no difficulty to establish swarms. However, bees ...
— New observations on the natural history of bees • Francis Huber

... elusive thing with which science has to deal but we have learned much about both life and matter in recent years, and it is a noteworthy fact that the more we learn the thinner become the ranks of the materialists. The only scientist of note who still declares his philosophy of materialism is Haeckel, and of him a brother scientist has written, "He is, as it were, a surviving voice from the middle of the nineteenth century;" and, referring to Haeckel's almost deserted ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers

... curious and varied region, far less monotonous than our present English world, still in its thinner regions, at any rate, wooded, perhaps rather more abundantly wooded, breaking continually into park and garden, and with everywhere a scattering of houses. These will not, as a rule, I should fancy, follow the fashion of the vulgar ready-built villas of the ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... keep on. Slone saw the impossibility of ever climbing out while that snow was there. The trail zigzagged down and down. Very soon the yellow wall hung tremendously over him, straight up. The snow became thinner and softer. The horses began to slip. They slid on their haunches. Fortunately the slope grew less steep, and Slone could see below where it reached out to comparatively level ground. Still, a mishap might yet occur. Slone kept as close to Nagger as possible, helping ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey

... growth and the amount of sapwood. Within the same species the cross-sectional area of the sapwood is roughly proportional to the size of the crown of the tree. If the rings are narrow, more of them are required than where they are wide. As the tree gets larger, the sapwood must necessarily become thinner or increase materially in volume. Sapwood is thicker in the upper portion of the trunk of a tree than near the base, because the age and the diameter of the upper sections ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record

... that in one place the trees were thinner, and that the light came strongly through, as from an open space beyond. Did the wood end here, then? She rose, and parting the leaves, moved forward, till all of a sudden she stopped short, in amazement. For something strange was before her. In an ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards

... prosperous man; and by a process of which we have had no opportunity to note the details, he has transformed Miss Snow into Mrs. Yates. The matter was concluded some years ago, and they seem quite wonted to each other. The Rev. Mr. Snow, grown thinner and grayer, and a great deal happier, is there with his wife and his two unmarried daughters. He finds it easier to "take things as they air," than formerly, and, by his old bridge, holds them against all comers. And who is this, and who are these? Jim Fenton, ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... such an illustrious man be satisfied with a height of only five feet three inches? His gray head hardly reached the shoulder of Mr. Malarius, and he was already stooping with age. He was also much thinner than the doctor, which made him appear twice as tall. His large brown overcoat, to which long use had given a greenish tint, hung loosely around him; he wore short breeches and shoes with buckles, and from beneath his black silk cap a few gray locks had made their escape. His rosy cheeks and ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne

... me, and lit a cigarette in his old, nonchalant manner. He was dressed in the seedy frockcoat of the book merchant, but the rest of that individual lay in a pile of white hair and old books upon the table. Holmes looked even thinner and keener than of old, but there was a dead-white tinge in his aquiline face which told me that his life recently had not been a ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... sick while hunting with officers last winter. She was with them and cooking in camp. In early spring left the officers and came down to St. John River, in May, and built wigwam near his mother's grave. He got no better, but worse, growing thinner and weaker, with great cough. "What 'Little Mag' do now my Paul gone?" "I know you good woman will ask Great Chief to help me go home to my tribe, there live and die. My little papoose, Paul, dead, sleeps near Quebec, died when ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith

... changed places with me, my two bench-fellows being rather thinner than his, and I benefited much by the change ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle

... to him with a message: he was to attend her Excellency in the salon. With a sense of relief, and of pleasure, Derrick hastened to obey the summons. The frail, yet proudly-erect figure was seated in the big chair; she looked thinner and more haggard; and Derrick, as he stood before her, feared that she was still suffering from the shock of the overturned lamp. She held out her hand, for the first time; and as Derrick took it, he felt it tremble ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice

... young man, tall and striking in appearance; clean shaven, with delicate features, dark dreamy gray eyes, and a tumbled mop of golden hair, innocent of parting. He was well-dressed, but his clothes hung upon him loosely, as if he had grown thinner since they were made; his face was pale too, and pinched in appearance, and his movements were languid, giving him altogether the air of a man just recovering from some serious illness. That he was a gentleman ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... with his hands tied behind his back, advanced toward the table silently, without lifting his eyes to anyone. He seemed shorter in stature and thinner. His dishevelled hair fell on his forehead and temples; the torn and crumpled bosom of his shirt protruding from under his vest, and the collar covered his lips. He turned his head to push the collar down ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky



Words linked to "Thinner" :   thin, agent, diluent



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