lean
pronunciation
How to pronounce lean in British English:
UK [liːn]
How to pronounce lean in American English:
US [liːn]
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- Noun:
- the property possessed by a line or surface that departs from the vertical
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- Verb:
- to incline or bend from a vertical position
- cause to lean or incline
- have a tendency or disposition to do or be something; be inclined
- rely on for support
- cause to lean to the side
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- Adjective:
- lacking excess flesh
- lacking in mineral content or combustible material
- containing little excess
- low in mineral content
- not profitable or prosperous
Word Origin
- lean
- lean: [OE] Lean ‘thin’ and lean ‘incline’ are of course of completely different origin. The adjective goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *khlainjaz. The verb can be traced to an Indo- European base *kli- ‘lean, slope’, which has given English a wealth of vocabulary. Via Greek intermediaries have come climate, climax, and clinic, while its Latin descendant clīnāre has produced decline, incline, and recline.The prehistoric Germanic verb formed from it was *khlinōjan, which has diversified into modern German lehnen, Dutch leunen, and English lean. From the same Germanic base come ladder, and also perhaps links ‘golf course’ [OE], which originally meant ‘sloping or rising ground’.=> climate, climax, clinic, decline, incline, ladder, links, recline
- lean (v.)
- c. 1200, from Old English hleonian "to bend, recline, lie down, rest," from Proto-Germanic *khlinen (cognates: Old Saxon hlinon, Old Frisian lena, Middle Dutch lenen, Dutch leunen, Old High German hlinen, German lehnen "to lean"), from PIE root *klei- "to lean, to incline" (cognates: Sanskrit srayati "leans," sritah "leaning;" Old Persian cay "to lean;" Lithuanian slyti "to slope," slieti "to lean;" Latin clinare "to lean, bend," clivus "declivity," inclinare "cause to bend," declinare "bend down, turn aside;" Greek klinein "to cause to slope, slant, incline;" Old Irish cloin "crooked, wrong;" Middle Irish cle, Welsh cledd "left," literally "slanting;" Welsh go-gledd "north," literally "left" -- for similar sense evolution, see Yemen, Benjamin, southpaw). Meaning "to incline the body against something for support" is mid-13c. Figurative sense of "to trust for support" is from early 13c. Sense of "to lean toward mentally, to favor" is from late 14c. Related: Leaned; leaning. Colloquial lean on "put pressure on" (someone) is first recorded 1960.
- lean (adj.)
- "thin, spare, with little flesh or fat," c. 1200, from Old English hlæne "lean, thin," possibly from hlænan "cause to lean or bend," from Proto-Germanic *khlainijan, which would connect it to Old English hleonian (see lean (v.)). But perhaps rather, according to OED, from a PIE *qloinio- (with cognates in Lithuanian klynas "scrap, fragment," Lettish kleins "feeble"). Extended and figurative senses from early 14c. The noun meaning "lean animals or persons" is from c. 1200, from the adjective.
- lean (n.)
- "action or state of leaning," 1776, from lean (v.).
Example
- 1. Personally , I lean toward the big-bang view .
- 2. Your models are all lean and muscular .
- 3. Overweight women are more likely to develop breast cancer than lean ones .
- 4. When you choose proteins , lean is always best .
- 5. But it is nonetheless a real problem , because the chinese banks lean heavily toward large state-controlled companies .