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LITHE
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I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Gracefully thin and bending and moving with ease
Synonyms:
lissom; lissome; lithe; lithesome; sinuous; supple
Classified under:
Similar:
graceful (characterized by beauty of movement, style, form, or execution)
Derivation:
litheness (the gracefulness of a person or animal that is flexible and supple)
Context examples:
In an instant out there slipped a beautiful reddish-brown creature, thin and lithe, with the legs of a stoat, a long, thin nose, and a pair of the finest red eyes that ever I saw in an animal’s head.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
They were not unlike each other, either in face or figure, though the Bristol man was a few years the older, and a murmur of critical admiration was heard as the two tall, lithe figures, and keen, clean-cut faces were contrasted.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
In an instant, without the least sound to warn us of his coming, the garden gate swung open, and a lithe, dark figure, as swift and active as an ape, rushed up the garden path.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
He was a thin-faced, yellow-haired youth, rather above the middle size, comely and well shapen, with straight, lithe figure and eager, boyish features.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Yet, grave as were his thoughts, they would still turn to wonder as he looked at the twinkling feet of his guide and saw her lithe figure bend this way and that, dipping under boughs, springing over stones, with a lightness and ease which made it no small task for him to keep up with her.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Three or four of the men round the fire were evidently underkeepers and verderers from the forest, sunburned and bearded, with the quick restless eye and lithe movements of the deer among which they lived.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
So intent were they upon each other that neither took note of his approach; until, when he was close upon them, the man threw his arm roughly round the damsel's waist and drew her towards him, she straining her lithe, supple figure away and striking fiercely at him, while the hooded hawk screamed with ruffled wings and pecked blindly in its mistress's defence.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Now it was a lithe, furtive stoat which shot across the path upon some fell errand of its own; then it was a wild cat which squatted upon the outlying branch of an oak and peeped at the traveller with a yellow and dubious eye.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
