pencil-thin
adjUS, UK /ˌpɛns(ə)l ˈθɪn/
1
Somewhat cylindrical and slender like a pencil; also, tall and thin.
- Pencil-Thin Treillage must be made of a metal that flows evenly and fully into every part of intricate molds.1962 November 15, “Which would You Design as Malleable Castings? [advertisement]”, in Mervin Roberts, editor, The Michigan Technic, volume LXXXI, number 2, Ann Arbor, Mich.: College of Engineering, University of Michigan, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 31:
- She would melt the bits of paraffin and make pencil-thin candles so that she, her daughters, and daughters-in-law could kindle the Sabbath candles and welcome the Sabbath with the number of candles they were accustomed to light in the pre-Hitler days.1982, Yaffa Eliach, “A Holy Book”, in Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust, New York, N.Y.: Vintage Books, published October 1988, →ISBN, part 1 (Ancestors and Faith), pages 92–92:
4 more examples
- Pencil-thin, cigarette-wielding women swayed to the rhythm of jazz bands, and unprecedented quantities of wine were consumed.1994, Mary Louise Roberts, “Introduction: ‘This Civilization No Longer has Sexes’”, in Civilization without Sexes: Reconstructing Gender in Postwar France, 1917–1927 (Women in Culture and Society), Chicago, Ill.; London: University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 1:
- I learned that all the stretching, pulling, and lifting in the world couldn't make me pencil thin like the teenage models I was supposed to look like.1997, Tali Edut, with Dyann Logwood, Ophira Edut, “HUES Magazine: The Making of a Movement”, in Leslie Heywood, Jennifer Drake, editors, Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism, Minnesota, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, published 2003, →ISBN, page 83:
- This special foodstuff is the pod of an unusual legume. It resembles a snap bean except for one singular fact: it is pencil-thin and as much as a meter long. Often called yardlong bean in English, these green to pale-green pods are tender, stringless, succulent, and sweet.2006, National Research Council, “Long Bean (Vigna unguiculata)”, in Lost Crops of Africa, volume II (Vegetables), Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, →ISBN, page 223:
- The dancers playing the role of conquistadors wore wire fencing masks that had been painted with long pointed Spanish faces; black, pencil-thin mustaches that curled slightly at the ends; blue eyes; long, thin European noses and thin mouths.2009, Billie Jean Isbell, “Written on My Body”, in Parvis Ghassem-Fachandi, editor, Violence: Ethnographic Encounters, English edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire; New York, N.Y.: Berg, →ISBN, page 19:
- Related terms
- slender