lithe
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
- lithely adverb
- litheness noun
Etymology
Origin of lithe
before 900; Middle English lith(e), Old English līthe; cognate with Old Saxon līthi, German lind “mild,” Latin lentus “slow”
Explanation
Have you ever seen people who can bend so easily, they can touch their heels to the back of their heads? Those people are, in a word, lithe. Lithe comes to us from Old English and originally meant "mild, meek." As a meek person bends to the will of others, the meaning of lithe has broadened to flexible and even graceful. Think of a dancer or the ease of a sleek cat when you think of lithe. You can use it to describe a person or the way someone moves.
Vocabulary lists containing lithe
Cat Vocabulary: A Feline Lexicon
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The Lightning Thief
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Ender's Game
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Acting, as Chalamet has shown time and again, is as much about a lithe and flexible body as it is about an emotive psyche.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 9, 2026
These Olympians, almost none of them were alive when Snoop broke into music, the lithe kid from Long Beach alongside Dr. Dre.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 12, 2026
The lithe physique of the rubber man of tennis enabled him to chase down seemingly lost causes and he combined a brutally efficient game with a rock-solid defence.
From Barron's • Jan. 31, 2026
If there’s one person who knows how to let a particularly awful year glide off her lithe, pilates-perfect back, it’s Gwyneth Paltrow.
From Salon • Dec. 22, 2025
They were creatures never seen before, lithe and grand and complicated.
From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
