Lean

How to spell lean

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce lean

What does lean mean?

1. verbTo bend or incline the body or an object so it rests at an angle or against a support.
2. adjectiveHaving little fat; thin, or describing something spare and efficient.

Lean in a sentence

• verb

  She likes to lean against the doorframe while she talks on the phone.

• adjective

  The recipe calls for a cut of lean beef with the fat trimmed away.

• verb

  The workers had to lean the ladder carefully against the wall.

• adjective

  After months of training he had a lean and muscular build.

Where does lean come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The verb 'lean' descends from the Old English hlinian (and its related form hleonian), meaning 'to bend, recline, or rest against something', and it belongs to a wide Germanic family that also gave German 'lehnen' and is distantly tied to the Latin 'inclinare', the source of our 'incline'. The adjective 'lean', meaning thin or lacking fat, comes from a separate Old English word, hlaene, of less certain origin within the Germanic group, and the two words only later fell together as the single spelling we use today. Over the centuries the verb broadened from purely physical leaning into figurative uses, such as leaning toward an opinion or leaning on someone for support. The adjective likewise stretched from describing thin bodies and lean meat to describing lean years of scarcity or a lean, efficient business. Because the word sounds exactly like the legal term 'lien' (a claim against property), writers occasionally swap the two, which is the main spelling pitfall to watch.

How the word is built

• lean (single root; verb from Old English hlinian 'to bend, recline'; adjective from Old English hlaene 'thin')

Words that sound like lean

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• lien: A legal right to keep or sell another person's property as security until a debt owed by that person is paid.