thickset

English

Alternative forms

• thick-set

Etymology

From thick +‎ set.

Adjective

thickset (comparative more thickset, superlative most thickset)

1. Having a relatively short, heavy build.

   Synonyms: big-boned, stocky, stout; see also Thesaurus:obese

   Antonyms: sleek, slender, slim, svelte, willowy

   a thickset, muscular figure

   a thickset workhorse

   • 1654, Samuel Clarke, “The Life of Theodore Beza”, in The Marrow of Ecclesiastical History‎^[2], London: T.V, page 885:

     He was a thick set man, and of a strong Constitution […]

   • 1748, [Tobias Smollett], chapter 8, in The Adventures of Roderick Random. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] [William Strahan] for J[ohn] Osborn […], →OCLC, page 52:

     […] he directed me to a small chink in the board partition, through which I could see a thick set brawny fellow, with a fierce countenance,

   • 1820, [Walter Scott], chapter VII, in The Abbot. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and John Ballantyne, […], →OCLC, page 146:

     Ralph, who was a thickset clownish figure, arrived at his full strength, and conscious of the most complete personal superiority, laughed contemptuously at the threats of the slight-made stripling.

   • 1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter 41, in Middlemarch […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book IV:

     The contrast was as striking as it could have been eighteen years before, when Rigg was a most unengaging kickable boy, and Raffles was the rather thick-set Adonis of bar-rooms and back-parlors.

   • 1926, Nalbro Bartley, chapter 1, in Her Mother’s Daughter‎^[3], New York: George H. Doran:

     More than ever Min hated her own thickset, healthy body, her round, red face with its small gray eyes, the mop of auburn hair which Aunt Julie braided so tightly […]

   • 1952, Nikos Kazantzakis, chapter 1, in Carl Wildman, transl., Zorba the Greek, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, translation of Βίος και πολιτεία του Αλέξη Ζορμπά [Víos kai politeía tou Aléxi Zormpá], →ISBN, page 3:

     The glass door opened and there entered a thick-set, mud-bespattered, weather-beaten dock laborer with bare head and bare feet.

   • 1970, Saul Bellow, chapter 6, in Mr. Sammler’s Planet‎^[4], Penguin, published 1977, page 279:

     Things edible would always be respected by a man who had nearly starved to death. The laborers, too, in white smocks, broad and heavy, a thickset personnel, butchers’ men.

   • 1989, Oscar Hijuelos, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, page 4:

     Standing in her entrance, two men in white silk suits and butterfly-looking lace bow ties, black instrument cases by their side and black-brimmed white hats in their hands–my father, Nestor Castillo, thin and broad-shouldered, and Uncle Cesar, thickset and immense.

2. Densely crowded together; made up of things that are densely crowded together; closely planted.

   Synonyms: dense, thick

   Antonyms: sparse, thin

   a thickset wood

   a thickset hedge

   • 1581, Thomas Newton (translator), Thebais in Seneca His Tenne Tragedies, London: Thomas Marsh, Act 2, p. 48,^[5]

     […] let me be allowde

     To lurke behinde this Craggy Rocke, or els my selfe to hyde

     On backside of some thickset hedge:

   • 1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, London: M. Lownes et al., Song 1, p. 11,^[6]

     […] Corineus ran

     With slaughter through the thick-set squadrons of the foes;

   • 1635, John Taylor, The olde, old, very olde man: or the age and long life of Thomas Par‎^[7], London: Henry Gosson:

     […] though his Beard not oft corrected,
     Yet neare it growes, not like a Beard neglected
     From head to heele, his body hath all over,
     A Quick-set, Thick-set nat’rall hairy cover.

   • 1696, Jane Leade, “Solomon’s Porch: or the Beautiful Gate of Wisdom’s Temple”, in A Fountain of Gardens‎^[8], London:

     The beauteous Love-Eye burning in the Heart;
     From whence Loves Centres endless multiply,
     As thick-set Spangles of the Sky,
     Raising a Sting of Joy in ev’ry Part.

   • 1700, “Meleager and Atalanta, Out of the Eighth Book of Ovid’s Metamorphosis”, in John Dryden, transl., Fables Ancient and Modern‎^[9], London: Jacob Tonson, page 106:

     His [the boar’s] Neck shoots up a thick-set thorny Wood;
     His bristled Back a Trench impal’d appears,
     And stands erected, like a Field of Spears.

   • 1862, Christina Rossetti, “A Birthday”, in Goblin Market and Other Poems‎^[10], London: Macmillan, page 56:

     My heart is like an appletree
     Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;

   • 1950, Mervyn Peake, chapter 77, in Gormenghast, London: Eyre and Spottiswoode:

     It was for the arc of lanterned boats to close in and to form the thickset audience, armed and impenetrable.

3. Densely covered (with something).

   a gully thickset with brambles

   • 1583, John Foxe, Acts and Monuments, London: John Day, Book 4, “The tragicall historie of Gregorie the vij. otherwise named Hildebrand,” p. 177,^[11]

     […] in a vessell being thick set with sharpe nayles, he tormented him to the poynt of death:

   • 1660, Nathaniel Ingelo, Bentivolio and Urania‎^[12], London: Richard Marriot, Book 3, p. 134:

     The sides of the Church were so thick set with Pictures, that it seem’d to be made in imitation of Plato’s Den, where one could see nothing but shadowes.

   • 1908, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 4, in Anne of Green Gables‎^[13]:

     A huge cherry-tree grew outside, so close that its boughs tapped against the house, and it was so thick-set with blossoms that hardly a leaf was to be seen.

   • 1929, Carl Grabo, chapter 7, in The Cat in Grand-Father’s House‎^[14], Chicago: Laidlaw Brothers, page 99:

     […] he came to the house of the King of the Gnomes, which was inside a mountain and as thickset with jewels as the grass with dew on a fine morning.

Translations

having a short heavy build or stature

• Bulgarian: набит (bg) (nabit)
• Finnish: pönäkkä
• German: untersetzt (de), dicht (de)
• Hungarian: zömök (hu)
• Italian: tozzo (it)
• Kabuverdianu: rokotó
• Maori: pūngerungeru
• Ottoman Turkish: یوغون (yoğun), ایری (iri)
• Turkish: tıknaz (tr), tıkız (tr)
• Yoruba: síngbọnlẹ̀

closely planted

• Bulgarian: гъсто засаден (gǎsto zasaden)

Noun

thickset (countable and uncountable, plural thicksets)

1. (countable, obsolete) A thick hedge.
   • 1858, Edward Bulwer-Lytton (as Pisistratus Caxton), What Will He Do with It? Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, Volume 4, Book 11, Chapter 7, p. 294,^[15]

     Had Darrell been placed amidst the circumstances that make happy the homes of earnest men, Darrell would have been mirthful; had Waife been placed amongst the circumstances that concentrate talent, and hedge round life with trained thicksets and belting laurels, Waife would have been grave.

2. (uncountable, historical) A stout, twilled cotton cloth; a fustian corduroy, or velveteen.
   • 1812, George Crabbe, Tales, London: J. Hatchard, Tale 4, “Procrastination,” p. 73,^[16]

     When he, with thickset coat of Badge-man’s blue,

     Moves near her shaded silk of changeful hue;

   • 1829, anonymous contributor, “A Day at Fontainebleau.—The Royal Hunt,” The Monthly Magazine, New Series, Volume 7, No. 37, January 1829, p. 12,^[17]

     His breeches were of the homeliest thickset;

3. (countable, historical) A piece of clothing made from this fabric.
   • 1785, John Trusler, chapter 17, in Modern Times: or the Adventures of Gabriel Outcast‎^[18], volume 2, London: for the author, page 27:

     […] his coat was originally what is called a thickset, but out at the elbows;

   • 1819, Walter Scott, chapter 1, in The Bride of Lammermoor‎^[19]:

     I had observed that our landlord wore, on that memorable morning, a pair of bran new velveteens instead of his ancient thicksets.

Anagrams

• sticketh, thickest, thickets