thinning

noun, adj — 4 senses

thinning

noun
1

Agriculture, Business, Forestry, Lifestyle Process of removing plants or parts of plants to facilitate the growth of other plants

  • The trimming, pruning and thinning must be managed with care. Some need more thinning than others.1881, Indiana State Board of Agriculture, “Forestry”, in Annual Report of the Indiana State Board of Agriculture, page 232:
2

Agriculture, Business, Forestry, Lifestyle Wood, leaves, or other plant parts removed during the process of thinning

  • but with a suitable mixture of early and late maturing kinds, the young hickories, ashs and larches can be utilized as thinnings, at a profit. In estimating the value of the thinnings upon the basis of Prof. Sargent's estimate of the acreage yield of hoop poles from hickory plantations,1878, Wisconsin State Horticultural Society, “Trees for the roadside and farm”, in Annual report of the Wisconsin State Horticultural Society, page 59:
3

The action or result of reducing thickness, density, or number

  • It is highly likely that this thinning was not atrophic or pathological, but simply the thinning from stretching under the forces of labor, as Bandl and others explain it.1885, Robert Barnes, A System of Obstetric Medicine and Surgery, volume 2, page 614:
Derived terms
shear-thinning, thinnings, thinning scissors
Related terms
pruning

thinning

adj
1

Usually Becoming less thick, dense, or numerous

  • thinning hair
Derived terms
unthinning

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.