LEAN

adj. 1 thin, slim, slender, rangy, spare, wiry, lanky, lank, skinny, angular, bony, raw-boned, gaunt, gangling, gangly, spare, meagre, skeletal, scraggy, scrawny, haggard, emaciated, pinched, wasted, shrunken, macilent He has the lean leggy build typical of a runner 2 unfruitful, unproductive, barren, infertile, poor, meagre, scanty, bare, arid, sparse, impoverished The Kanes tried for years to eke a living from the lean soil 3 impoverished, destitute, needy, poverty-stricken, penurious, indigent, necessitous, hard, bad, difficult The Depression was a lean period for most people