thick and thin
noun1
Both thickets and thin woodland; all obstacles in a path (including bad weather).
- His tyreling Jade he fiersly forth did push / Through thicke and thin, both over banck and bush [...]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
2
Idiomatic Both good and bad times.
- As Joan of France, or English Mall, / Through perils both of Wind and Limb, / Through thick and thin she follow'd him, / In ev'ry Adventure h' undertook, / And never him, or it forsook.1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]. Canto II.”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678, →OCLC; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC, page 38:
- I must follow him through thick and thin.1687, John Phillips, transl., Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes:
2 more examples
- He became the panegyrist, through thick and thin, of a military frenzy.1835 July, Sara Coleridge, Letter to Mrs. Henry Jones:
- They say that when the chips are down, girl Your love won't stay so long, my friend But they don't know that your sweet loving, babe Has been around through thick and thin1968 December 8, Henry Cosby, Sylvia Moy, Stevie Wonder, “I’d Be a Fool Right Now”, in For Once in My Life, performed by Stevie Wonder, Tamla Records: