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Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

thick and thin en · NOUN

Pronunciation

Meanings

  1. (uncountable) Both thickets and thin woodland; all obstacles in a path (including bad weather).
    • His tyreling Jade he fiersly forth did push / Through thicke and thin, both over banck and bush [...] 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
  2. (idiomatic, uncountable) Both good and bad times.
    • I must follow him through thick and thin. 1687, John Phillips, transl., Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes:
    • He became the panegyrist, through thick and thin, of a military frenzy. 1835 July, Sara Coleridge, Letter to Mrs. Henry Jones:
    • As Joan of France, or English Mall, / Through perils both of Wind and Limb, / Through thick and thin she follow'd him, / In ev'ry Adventure h' undertook, / And never him, or it forsook. 1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]. Canto II.”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678, →OCLC; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC, page 38:
    • They say that when the chips are down, girl Your love won't stay so long, my friend But they don't know that your sweet loving, babe Has been around through thick and thin 1968 December 8, Henry Cosby, Sylvia Moy, Stevie Wonder, “I’d Be a Fool Right Now”, in For Once in My Life, performed by Stevie Wonder, Tamla Records:

Relateds

thick on the ground · thin on the ground · for better or worse · through thick and thin · in sickness and in health · in weal and woe

Translations (9)

sv ur och skur (both good and bad times) · fi hyvät ja huonot ajat (but also see myötä- ja vastoinkäymiset) (both good and bad times) · sv vått och torrt (both good and bad times) · de durch dick und dünn (both good and bad times) · cs dobré i zlé (both good and bad times) · nb tykt og tynt (both good and bad times) · sv regn och rusk (both good and bad times) · pl na dobre i na złe (both good and bad times) · nl door dik en dun (both good and bad times)