<adj.all> you can't be too rich or too thin Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look
lacking in mineral content or combustible material
<adj.all> lean ore lean fuel
containing little excess
<adj.all> a lean budget a skimpy allowance
not profitable or prosperous
<adj.all> a lean year
Lean \Lean\, v. t. [From {Lean}, v. i.; AS. hl[=ae]nan, v. t., fr. hleonian, hlinian, v. i.] To cause to lean; to incline; to support or rest. --Mrs. Browning.
His fainting limbs against an oak he leant. --Dryden.
Lean \Lean\ (l[=e]n), a. [Compar. {Leaner} (l[=e]n"[~e]r); superl. {Leanest}.] [OE. lene, AS. hl[=ae]ne; prob. akin to E. lean to incline. See {Lean}, v. i. ] 1. Wanting flesh; destitute of or deficient in fat; slim; not plump; slender; meager; thin; lank; as, a lean body; a lean cattle.
2. Wanting fullness, richness, sufficiency, or productiveness; deficient in quality or contents; slender; scant; barren; bare; mean; -- used literally and figuratively; as, the lean harvest; a lean purse; a lean discourse; lean wages. ``No lean wardrobe.'' --Shak.
Their lean and flashy songs. --Milton.
What the land is, whether it be fat or lean. --Num. xiii. 20.
Out of my lean and low ability I'll lend you something. --Shak.
3. (Typog.) Of a character which prevents the compositor from earning the usual wages; -- opposed to {fat}; as, lean copy, matter, or type.
Lean \Lean\ (l[=e]n), v. t. [Icel. leyna; akin to G. l["a]ugnen to deny, AS. l[=y]gnian, also E. lie to speak falsely.] To conceal. [Obs.] --Ray.
Lean \Lean\ (l[=e]n), v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Leaned} (l[=e]nd), sometimes {Leant} (l[e^]nt); p. pr. & vb. n. {Leaning}.] [OE. lenen, AS. hlinian, hleonian, v. i.; akin to OS. hlin[=o]n, D. leunen, OHG. hlin[=e]n, lin[=e]n, G. lehnen, L. inclinare, Gr. kli`nein, L. clivus hill, slope. [root]40. Cf. {Declivity}, {Climax}, {Incline}, {Ladder}.] 1. To incline, deviate, or bend, from a vertical position; to be in a position thus inclining or deviating; as, she leaned out at the window; a leaning column. ``He leant forward.'' --Dickens.
2. To incline in opinion or desire; to conform in conduct; -- with to, toward, etc.
They delight rather to lean to their old customs. --Spenser.
3. To rest or rely, for support, comfort, and the like; -- with on, upon, or against.
He leaned not on his fathers but himself. --Tennyson.
Lean \Lean\, n. 1. That part of flesh which consists principally of muscle without the fat.
The fat was so white and the lean was so ruddy. --Goldsmith.
2. (Typog.) Unremunerative copy or work.
In his speech, Kinnear said that the petrochemical industry could profit if it remains lean.
Which way would a President Dukakis lean?
The software is explicitly described as an ERP product and is intended to support 'lean,' JIT-type manufacturing procedures. Another ERP product is the Control Manufacturing system from Cincom, first launched in March this year.
This is often accompanied by informal advice from the bank to 'lean on your suppliers'.
His dozen elderly men found the benefits were temporary, with the lean muscle dissolving back into fat once the hormone injections ceased.
Crosslee has a reputation as a factory offering secure employment for those who can take the pace. After years in a multinational, joint managing directors Mr Ross and Mr Clee take pleasure in running a lean organisation.
He said Family Media's staff is lean, with overhead costs that are minuscule compared with Time's.
They have to be lean and mean." BEN COHEN Chairman, Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc.
"We were very lean, and we needed to replace some of the very good people who left," he said.
The town centre itself has been undermined, and even divine patronage has not been able to prevent the spire of the Church of the Guardian Angels from starting to lean. Worst of all is the uncertainty.
A lean operation with six employees, a handful of consultants and a mere $13 million in capital, it has toted up a record that might make an orthodox venture capitalist blush.
"There have been a lot of misunderstandings" about the Fed policy, he said, because of statements by Treasury Secretary James Baker implying that he would lean on the Fed to pump up the money supply to avert a recession.
While their arms have often been more expensive, both because they were more sophisticated and because the US has been less concerned about price, now the consolidation of companies and the introduction of lean manufacturing techniques is closing the gap.
Also working in the Big Three's favor: GM, Ford and Chrysler have relatively lean inventories after months of depressed production.
Saatchi & Saatchi is now a lean global advertising group, reporting a return to pre-tax profits of Pounds 19.2m.
The lean score of Petrified touches down, regularly and reassuringly, upon tonal bases.
The strings make more biting attacks and lean into the beginning of notes, and the flutes and oboes leave out vibrato.
When Poland moves to reform, it can at least lean on its past: However flawed and short-lived Joseph Pilsudski's interwar republic, it was a nonsocialist democracy.
People who have bought shares in the state industries that have been denationalized and tenants of public housing who have been permitted to buy their homes and apartments all lean toward the Tories.
That process has created pork cuts that are 97 percent lean.
It looks as though the poor old private investor has been trumped again. All the same, unit trust salesmen may have something to look forward to after the relatively lean years of 1990 and 1991.
"With employment soaring and capacity so full, the Fed's going to have to lean against the economy and raise the discount rate," said Larry Wachtel, a market analyst with Prudential-Bache Securities Inc.
The gospel now is lean production, lean engineering and lean investment.
The gospel now is lean production, lean engineering and lean investment.
The gospel now is lean production, lean engineering and lean investment.
A further six billion pounds a year are sold as ungraded beef, 80% of which would fall into the lean category.
And Mr. Araskog has restructured what he inherited; ITT today is much more attuned to contemporary lean tastes than it was in the flamboyant days of Harold Geneen.
Big annual bonuses paid out in the lean years - particularly 1990 - were always difficult to justify.
He had to lean on another actor to keep from falling down.
I don't want to become the Brother Grimm of opera." Country music singer George Strait has a crisp tenor, a lean frame and a career that is rolling like the tumbleweed in his native Texas.