- slim
- 1657, "thin, slight, slender," from Du. slim "bad, sly, clever," from M.Du. slim "bad, crooked," from P.Gmc. *slembaz "oblique, crooked" (cf. M.H.G. slimp "slanting, awry," Ger. schlimm "bad"). The verb meaning "to try to reduce one's weight" is recorded from 1930. Slimming "producing an appearance of thinness" is from 1925. Slimnastics first recorded 1967. Slim Jim attested from 1889 in sense of "very thin person."