Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English homepage


1 in a way that has a very small distance between two sides or two flat surfaces [≠ thickly]:
thinly sliced bread
2 scattered or spread over a large area, with a lot of space in between:
Sow the radish seeds thinly.
The mountain regions are more thinly populated than the lowlands.

thinly disguised/veiled

if something is thinly disguised etc, someone is pretending it is something else, but you can easily see what it really is:
He looked at Frank's new car with thinly veiled envy.

Dictionary pictures of the day
Do you know what each of these is called?

Explore our topic dictionary