a.
1. Having a thin skin or rind.
1598. Chapman, Blinde Begger of Alexandria, Wks. 1873, I. 11. Round faces and thinne skinde are happiest still.
1707. Mortimer, Husb. (1721), II. 155. Chuse the large, round, white, and thin-skinned ones.
1875. Bennett & Dyer, Sachs’ Bot., 539. A stony endocarp surrounding the thin-skinned seed.
2. fig. Sensitive to criticism, ridicule, or abuse; easily hurt or offended; touchy.
1680. Baxter, Answ. Stillingfl., lxxviii. 99. I … never was so thin Skin’d as to be unable to bear a Cholerick breath.
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl., 8 June. My apothecary, who is a proud Scotchman, very thin skinned.
1818. Cobbett, Pol. Reg., XXXIII. 311. The professional gentlemen in Pennsylvania are … extremely thin-skinned, when they are the party attacked.
1894. Froude, Life & Lett. Erasmus, xvii. 328. Erasmus … was thin-skinned as ever.
Hence Thin-skinnedness, the condition or quality of being thin-skinned; sensitiveness.
1882. Sala, Amer. Revis. (1883), I. iii. 43, note. A very gratifying proof of the diminution of what may be termed ‘thin-skinnedness.’
1897. Spectator, 23 Oct., 552/1. This thin-skinnedness among experienced public men.
