a. Also 8 Sc. spinly. [f. SPINDLE sb.]
1. Of plants: Of a slender and weakly growth.
1651. in Hartlib, Legacy (1655), 106. No more then a strong and fairly spread root could have a small and spindly head.
1743. Maxwell, Sel. Trans. Agric. Scot., 80. Where it … continues as Quagmire, it is all Fog at Top, with a short spinly thin Grass.
1805. R. W. Dickson, Pract. Agric., I. 550. On such lands the growth of the crop may be so retarded as to become weak and spindly.
1855. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., XVI. I. 131. The corn turns yellow and spindly.
1880. Miss Bird, Japan, I. 242. Sandy ridges with nothing on them but spindly Scotch firs and fir scrub.
Comb. 1897. Mary Kingsley, W. Africa, 262. Some stretches of this forest were made up of thin, spindly stemmed trees of great height.
b. Of growth: Characterized by slimness or attenuation and weakness.
1856. Glenny, Everyday Bk., 121/1. Cramped into a weakly spindly growth, a temporary bloom, and a premature decay.
1887. Sat. Rev., 1 Oct., 444. They [sc. trees] developed an abnormal spindly habit in their struggles upwards.
2. In general use: Having a slender elongated form implying, or suggestive of, weakness.
1827. Sporting Mag. (N.S.), XX. 170. A late writer … complains of our present breed of racers as weak and spindly.
1871. B. Taylor, Faust (1875), I. 108. Therefore I’ve worn, like many a spindly youth, False calves these many years upon me.
1883. Mrs. G. L. Banks, Forbidden to Marry, I. vi. 102. Spindly fire-irons in tall rests within a perforated steel fender had an air of never being used.
1892. Sladen, Japs at Home, xvi. The spindly little lacquer tables,… with bowed legs.
