thickset
English
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editthickset (comparative more thickset, superlative most thickset)
- Having a relatively short, heavy build.
- Synonyms: big-boned, stocky, stout; see also Thesaurus:obese
- Antonyms: sleek, slender, slim, svelte, willowy
- a thickset, muscular figure
- a thickset workhorse
- 1654, Samuel Clarke, “The Life of Theodore Beza”, in The Marrow of Ecclesiastical History[2], London: T.V, page 885:
- He was a thick set man, and of a strong Constitution […]
- 1748, [Tobias Smollett], chapter 8, in The Adventures of Roderick Random. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] [William Strahan] for J[ohn] Osborn […], →OCLC, page 52:
- […] he directed me to a small chink in the board partition, through which I could see a thick set brawny fellow, with a fierce countenance,
- 1820, [Walter Scott], chapter VII, in The Abbot. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and John Ballantyne, […], →OCLC, page 146:
- Ralph, who was a thickset clownish figure, arrived at his full strength, and conscious of the most complete personal superiority, laughed contemptuously at the threats of the slight-made stripling.
- 1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter 41, in Middlemarch […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book IV:
- The contrast was as striking as it could have been eighteen years before, when Rigg was a most unengaging kickable boy, and Raffles was the rather thick-set Adonis of bar-rooms and back-parlors.
- 1926, Nalbro Bartley, chapter 1, in Her Mother’s Daughter[3], New York: George H. Doran:
- More than ever Min hated her own thickset, healthy body, her round, red face with its small gray eyes, the mop of auburn hair which Aunt Julie braided so tightly […]
- 1952, Nikos Kazantzakis, chapter 1, in Carl Wildman, transl., Zorba the Greek, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, translation of Βίος και πολιτεία του Αλέξη Ζορμπά [Víos kai politeía tou Aléxi Zormpá], →ISBN, page 3:
- The glass door opened and there entered a thick-set, mud-bespattered, weather-beaten dock laborer with bare head and bare feet.
- 1970, Saul Bellow, chapter 6, in Mr. Sammler’s Planet[4], Penguin, published 1977, page 279:
- Things edible would always be respected by a man who had nearly starved to death. The laborers, too, in white smocks, broad and heavy, a thickset personnel, butchers’ men.
- 1989, Oscar Hijuelos, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, page 4:
- Standing in her entrance, two men in white silk suits and butterfly-looking lace bow ties, black instrument cases by their side and black-brimmed white hats in their hands–my father, Nestor Castillo, thin and broad-shouldered, and Uncle Cesar, thickset and immense.
- Densely crowded together; made up of things that are densely crowded together; closely planted.
- 1581, Thomas Newton (translator), Thebais in Seneca His Tenne Tragedies, London: Thomas Marsh, Act 2, p. 48,[5]
- […] let me be allowde
- To lurke behinde this Craggy Rocke, or els my selfe to hyde
- On backside of some thickset hedge:
- 1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, London: M. Lownes et al., Song 1, p. 11,[6]
- […] Corineus ran
- With slaughter through the thick-set squadrons of the foes;
- 1635, John Taylor, The olde, old, very olde man: or the age and long life of Thomas Par[7], London: Henry Gosson:
- […] though his Beard not oft corrected,
Yet neare it growes, not like a Beard neglected
From head to heele, his body hath all over,
A Quick-set, Thick-set nat’rall hairy cover.
- 1696, Jane Leade, “Solomon’s Porch: or the Beautiful Gate of Wisdom’s Temple”, in A Fountain of Gardens[8], London:
- The beauteous Love-Eye burning in the Heart;
From whence Loves Centres endless multiply,
As thick-set Spangles of the Sky,
Raising a Sting of Joy in ev’ry Part.
- 1700, “Meleager and Atalanta, Out of the Eighth Book of Ovid’s Metamorphosis”, in John Dryden, transl., Fables Ancient and Modern[9], London: Jacob Tonson, page 106:
- His [the boar’s] Neck shoots up a thick-set thorny Wood;
His bristled Back a Trench impal’d appears,
And stands erected, like a Field of Spears.
- 1862, Christina Rossetti, “A Birthday”, in Goblin Market and Other Poems[10], London: Macmillan, page 56:
- My heart is like an appletree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
- 1950, Mervyn Peake, chapter 77, in Gormenghast, London: Eyre and Spottiswoode:
- It was for the arc of lanterned boats to close in and to form the thickset audience, armed and impenetrable.
- 1581, Thomas Newton (translator), Thebais in Seneca His Tenne Tragedies, London: Thomas Marsh, Act 2, p. 48,[5]
- Densely covered (with something).
- a gully thickset with brambles
- 1583, John Foxe, Acts and Monuments, London: John Day, Book 4, “The tragicall historie of Gregorie the vij. otherwise named Hildebrand,” p. 177,[11]
- […] in a vessell being thick set with sharpe nayles, he tormented him to the poynt of death:
- 1660, Nathaniel Ingelo, Bentivolio and Urania[12], London: Richard Marriot, Book 3, p. 134:
- The sides of the Church were so thick set with Pictures, that it seem’d to be made in imitation of Plato’s Den, where one could see nothing but shadowes.
- 1908, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 4, in Anne of Green Gables[13]:
- A huge cherry-tree grew outside, so close that its boughs tapped against the house, and it was so thick-set with blossoms that hardly a leaf was to be seen.
- 1929, Carl Grabo, chapter 7, in The Cat in Grand-Father’s House[14], Chicago: Laidlaw Brothers, page 99:
- […] he came to the house of the King of the Gnomes, which was inside a mountain and as thickset with jewels as the grass with dew on a fine morning.
Translations
edithaving a short heavy build or stature
closely planted
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Noun
editthickset (countable and uncountable, plural thicksets)
- (countable, obsolete) A thick hedge.
- 1858, Edward Bulwer-Lytton (as Pisistratus Caxton), What Will He Do with It? Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, Volume 4, Book 11, Chapter 7, p. 294,[15]
- Had Darrell been placed amidst the circumstances that make happy the homes of earnest men, Darrell would have been mirthful; had Waife been placed amongst the circumstances that concentrate talent, and hedge round life with trained thicksets and belting laurels, Waife would have been grave.
- 1858, Edward Bulwer-Lytton (as Pisistratus Caxton), What Will He Do with It? Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, Volume 4, Book 11, Chapter 7, p. 294,[15]
- (uncountable, historical) A stout, twilled cotton cloth; a fustian corduroy, or velveteen.[1]
- 1812, George Crabbe, Tales, London: J. Hatchard, Tale 4, “Procrastination,” p. 73,[16]
- When he, with thickset coat of Badge-man’s blue,
- Moves near her shaded silk of changeful hue;
- 1829, anonymous contributor, “A Day at Fontainebleau.—The Royal Hunt,” The Monthly Magazine, New Series, Volume 7, No. 37, January 1829, p. 12,[17]
- His breeches were of the homeliest thickset;
- 1812, George Crabbe, Tales, London: J. Hatchard, Tale 4, “Procrastination,” p. 73,[16]
- (countable, historical) A piece of clothing made from this fabric.
- 1785, John Trusler, chapter 17, in Modern Times: or the Adventures of Gabriel Outcast[18], volume 2, London: for the author, page 27:
- […] his coat was originally what is called a thickset, but out at the elbows;
- 1819, Walter Scott, chapter 1, in The Bride of Lammermoor[19]:
- I had observed that our landlord wore, on that memorable morning, a pair of bran new velveteens instead of his ancient thicksets.