thick and thin

thick and thin

English

Pronunciation

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Noun

thick and thin (uncountable)

1. Both thickets and thin woodland; (through) all obstacles in a path.
   • c. 1390, Geoffrey Chaucer, "The Reeve's Tale", Canterbury Tales, Ellesmere ms:

     Toward the fen / ther wilde Mares renne / fforth with wehee / thurgh thikke and thurgh thenne [...]

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938:

     His tyreling Jade he fiersly forth did push / Through thicke and thin, both over banck and bush [...]

2. (idiomatic) Both good and bad times.
   • 1662, [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678, OCLC 890163163; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge: University Press, 1905, OCLC 963614346, canto II, page 38:

     As Joan of France, or English Mall, / Through perils both of Wind and Limb, / Through thick and thin she follow'd him, / In ev'ry Adventure h' undertook, / And never him, or it forsook.

   • 1687, John Phillips (translator), Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes

     I must follow him through thick and thin.

   • 1835 July, Sara Coleridge, Letter to Mrs. Henry Jones:

     He became the panegyrist, through thick and thin, of a military frenzy.

Derived terms

• through thick and thin

Translations

both good and bad times

Dutch: dik en dun Finnish: hyvät ja huonot ajat (but also see myötä- ja vastoinkäymiset) Norwegian: Bokmål: tykt og tynt Polish: na dobre i na złe (pl) Swedish: vått och torrt

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

Icelandic: súrt og sætt Spanish: a las duras y a las maduras

References

• Thick and Thin, theFreeDictionary.com