Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US campus) a problematic or unpleasant situation.

1968

Current Sl. II:4 10: Thin city, n. A troublesome situation.

(US) a tiny amount of money.

1920		R. Lardner Big Town 59: ‘It’s a damn pretty view,’ I says, ‘but I’ve often seen the same view from the top of a bus for a thin dime.’.
1930		J. Tully Shadows of Men 301: Blink doesn’t ask for a thin dime.
1935		W. Smith Bessie Cotter 207: You’d put your own mother on the turf if it’d win you a thin dime.
1962		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 201: I might introduce you to a friend of mine / and maybe he’ll loan you a thin, thin dime.
2005		J. Buskey Tinged Valor 39: [E]very officer wanted to get paid so they could not afford to let as much as a thin dime slip by.

a very thin, starving person.

1602		Middleton Blurt, Master Constable B3: Sirra thin-gut, what’s thy name?
1611		Rowlands ‘Master Make Shift’ Knave of Clubs 20: Some swear, some swagger [...] Wishing the reckning would make thin-gut fat.
1631		Massinger Believe As You List III ii: Thou thin-gut!

(US drugs) a veteran opium smoker who has lain on one hip for so long that it is misshapen.

1936		D. Maurer ‘Argot of the Und. Narcotic Addict’ Pt 1 in AS XI:2 126/2: thin hips. An old-time opium addict, one who has smoked lying on one side for so long that his hips are of unequal size.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

1. (US black/tramp) a dime, ten cents.

1917		Cincinnati Enquirer (OH) 12 May 12/1: ‘Yuh otta be bloody well satisfied tuh have the stiffs slippin’ yuh their thin ones for that “kidney killer” yuh call whiskey’.
1926		N. Klein ‘Hobo Lingo’ in AS I:12 653: Thin-ones — ten cent pieces.
1930		‘Dean Stiff’ Milk and Honey Route 216: Thin ones – small coins; dimes, nickels and pennies.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks.
1944		‘Jiver’s Bible’ in D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive.
1954		‘Bop Dict.’ Mad mag. July 20: dime – thin one.
1963		A.S. Fleischman Venetian Blonde (2006) 192: I turned my pockets inside out. I had spent every thin one I had.

2. (US black) a sheet of (writing) paper.

1946

D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 2 Feb. 23: Scratch some of those fine front-jet hypes on some thin ones [...] The thin one [...] means paper that you write on.

(Irish) balding.

2015

L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 75: [T]he thin-smigged clown at the till.

a period of suffering or discomfiture.

1928		J. Harvey French Foreign Legion in Syria (1995) 43: The man who could not ride well had a very thin time. He was cursed and damned, and called every variety of pig and dog [Ibid.] 105: ‘I had a very thin time when I first went there—I was ostracized because I was a “nigger”’.
1936		E. Ambler Dark Frontier 239: Ingenious enough, Toumachin [...] but what about the poor devils in those two towns? They're in for a pretty thin time.
2003		Daily Tel. 12 Feb. 🌐 Thin time for Pizza Express amid bid talk.

1. a half-sovereign (50p).

1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Dec. 38/4: He worked on a system. ‘Never give change for gold,’ says Wibs; an’ that was what he useter rely on. Whenever a bloke passed out a thin un, Wibs’d give him threepence change an’ pass on. [...] Nine times outer 10, th’ blokes’d put the traybit in their kicks an’ says nothin’.

2. see thin one

see under shit n.

a phr. used of a very thin person.

2003

McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 195: so thin you could cut your finger on its/his/her spine A starved animal or anorexic person.