[f. THIN a. + -NESS.] The quality or condition of being thin.
1. Narrowness of dimension between opposite surfaces; absence of thickness or depth.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., II. (1586), 80 b. Fulnesse and emptinesse, or thicknesse and thinnes.
1617. Moryson, Itin., III. 175. Cotton cloth … for thinnesse not vnlike our boulting cloths.
1715. Desaguliers, Fires Impr., 113. Where you cannot dig in the Back-Wall of a Chimney by reason of its thinness.
1807. Vancouver, Agric. Devon (1813), 54. The thinness of the seam [of coal].
1863. Lyell, Antiq. Man, iii. 34. The extreme thinness of the film of matter.
b. Lean or spare habit of body; spareness.
1827–35. Willis, Leper, 65. There, alone, Wasted to ghastly thinness, Helon knelt.
c. fig. Deficiency, poverty, meagerness, feebleness; lack of depth or fullness.
c. 1000. Sax. Leechd., I. 134. Hit ʓehælð þa þynnysse þære ʓesihðe.
1623. W. Balcanqual, Serm. St. Maries Spittle, 98. The thinnesse of our Ioy, because we did sowe our teares too thin.
1903. Daily Chron., 20 Feb., 3/6. That there was much ‘intellectual thinness’ among young men.
2. The condition of being thinly arranged, occupied, or attended; want of fullness; sparseness.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 491/1. Thynnesse, of wodys, cornys, and oþer lyke, raritas.
1573–80. Baret, Alv., T 166. Thinnesse: seldomnesse, rarité.
1690. Locke, Govt., II. vi. § 74. The Thinness of People gives Families Leave to separate into unpossessed Quarters.
1774. A. Gib, Pres. Truth, II. 40. None of these brethren opened a mouth about the thinness of the meeting.
1826. F. Reynolds, Life & Times, II. 200. Expressing my surprise at the … thinness of the house.
3. Absence or lack of density, consistence, or viscosity; fluidity, tenuity, rarity.
c. 1000. Sax. Leechd., II. 199. Þonne þara metta meltung biþ & þynnes.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XI. i. (Tollem. MS.). Eyer haþ more þinnesse and clerenesse þan oþer elementis.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 491/1. Thynnesse, or thynhede of licurys.
1582. Stanyhurst, Æneis, I. (Arb.), 37. From earthly thicknesse, too thinnesse vannished ayerie.
1684–5. Boyle, Min. Waters, 26. Of the thinness or viscosity of the Mineral Water.
a. 1854. Caroline B. Southey, Poet. Wks. (1867), 67. Milk … tempered down To wholesome thinness.
