lithe
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
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.
See Examples For:
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
A bit of tinkering – stripping the original’s heavy bassline, tossing in his lithe falsetto and a playful guitar to hold everything aloft – made the one-time throwaway into something immortal.
From Salon ● Feb. 14, 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
When Lyra thought of his lithe golden shape, she felt ill with fear.
From "The Golden Compass" by Philip Pullman
Pappano, the longtime music director of the Royal Opera House in London, offers a lighter, lither reading, not rushed but evenly flowing, airy even when agitated.
From New York Times ● Oct. 27, 2021
Crispy-edged and light, like lither thin-crust pizzas, tortizzas can be topped with whatever you like and nothing you don’t.
From New York Times ● Sep. 10, 2021
So in the long term on Mars I think we will eventually see a lighter, lither build than on Earth.
From Scientific American ● Dec. 19, 2012
Coutured and made up to seem a younger, taller, lither Davis, Neal reads her early lines with a castrating wit, accompanied by the flinging of an eyebrow for emphasis.
From Time ● Aug. 11, 2010
“Send word to thy Lord, thou lither oaf!” cried the irate trumpeter, “and see whether it liketh him to keep the Lady awaiting hither on an even in January, while thou pratest in chopped English!”
From The White Rose of Langley A Story of the Olden Time by Emily Sarah Holt
The porteuses, said to be the lithest, hardiest women of the occident, wore a pitiable look of fatigue, as they came down from the hill-trails, steadying the baskets upon their heads.
From She Buildeth Her House by William Wistar Comfort
I could brew a jug of Punch, and at a jig could dance down the lithest gambriler of those parts, Dan Meagher, the Blind Piper of Swords.
From The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 Who was a sailor, a soldier, a merchant, a spy, a slave among the moors... by George Augustus Sala
Were the snake himself coiled round that consecrated bauble, the prayers of the devout Father Checkley would unclasp his lithest folds.
From Rookwood by William Harrison Ainsworth
This Gunnar was the best skilled in weapons, and the lithest of limb of all bonderfolk who have been in Iceland; the second was Gunnar of Lithend; but Steinthor of Ere was the third.
From The Story Of Gunnlaug The Worm-Tongue And Raven The Skald 1875 by William Morris
Beyond everything he enjoyed the sight of the lithest and most elegant of the girls, whom he knew to be Eliza Brating and who was dancing with a partner whose skill obviously needed no lessons.
From Mr. Prohack by Arnold Bennett
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