lean

1. 1.

   lacking excess flesh

   “you can't be too rich or too thin”

   “Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look”

   Synonymsthin

   Similaranorexiccadaverousdeep-eyedganglinglankrawbonedreedytwiggy
2. 2.

   lacking in mineral content or combustible material

   “lean ore”

   “lean fuel”

   Antonymsrich
3. 3.

   containing little excess

   “a lean budget”

   “a skimpy allowance”

   Synonymsskimpy

   Similarinsufficient
4. 4.

   not profitable or prosperous

   “a lean year”

   Similarunprofitable

1. 1.

   the property possessed by a line or surface that departs from the vertical

   “the tower had a pronounced tilt”

   “the ship developed a list to starboard”

   “he walked with a heavy inclination to the right”

   Synonymstiltlistinclinationleaning

   Broaderposition

Other forms of lean

plural

leans·

past tense or participle

leant

present participle

leaning·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about lean

What does lean mean?

lean means "to incline or bend from a vertical position". That is the primary sense; the word has 10 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in lean?

lean has 1 syllable: lean. In IPA it is /ˈlin/.

What is another word for lean?

Close synonyms include tilt, tip, slant, angle, tend. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of lean?

The recorded antonyms are rich.

Is lean a common word?

lean is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with lean?

24 words rhyme with lean. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.