thickset

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English[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

thick +‎ set

Adjective[edit]

thickset (comparative more thickset, superlative most thickset)

  1. 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. 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.
  2. Densely crowded together; made up of things that are densely crowded together; closely planted.
    Synonyms: dense, thick
    Antonyms: sparse, thin
    a thickset wood
    a thickset hedge
    • 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.
  3. 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[edit]

Noun[edit]

thickset (countable and uncountable, plural thicksets)

  1. (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.
  2. (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;
  3. (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.

References[edit]

  1. ^ Thomas McElrath, A Dictionary of Words and Phrases Used in Commerce, New York: Taintor Brothers, 1871, p. 535.[1]

Anagrams[edit]

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