Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Frail; flimsy.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Flimsy; frail; thin and unsubstantial: as, slimsy calico.
  • Idle; dawdling.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Colloq. U.S. Flimsy; frail.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective US, colloquial, dated flimsy; frail

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Blend of slim and flimsy.]

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Examples

  • His slimsy silver spoon, dented with toothmarks of an ancestor who had died in a delirium, was laid evenly by his plate.

    The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story Various 1915

  • A “miss” of an uncertain number of years, more or less brains, a slimsy figure, nut-cracker face and store teeth, goes raiding about the country attempting to teach mothers and wives their duty ....

    The Life and Work of Susan B Anthony 01 Harper, Ida H 1899

  • A "miss" of an uncertain number of years, more or less brains, a slimsy figure, nut-cracker face and store teeth, goes raiding about the country attempting to teach mothers and wives their duty ....

    The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years Ida Husted Harper 1891

  • They were none of the slimsy, composition-filled, aniline-dyed calicoes of to-day.

    Home Life in Colonial Days Alice Morse Earle 1881

  • If there were sewn with these strips of light cotton stuff of equal width, the carpet would prove a poor thing, heavy in spots and slimsy in others.

    Home Life in Colonial Days Alice Morse Earle 1881

  • Cradle sheets of this thin, closely woven, white worsted stuff are not slimsy like thin flannel, yet are softer than flannel.

    Home Life in Colonial Days Alice Morse Earle 1881

  • Pick out a smart, handy woman that can make butter yaller as gold, that'll bring gold, and not such limpsy-slimsy, ghostly-looking stuff as you've brought me.

    He Fell in Love with His Wife Edward Payson Roe 1863

  • In like manner, I have heard of a prayer preferred by a somewhat simple New Englander, who was overheard offering his petition behind a clump of bushes in a field: "O Lord, I want a new coat -- good cloth -- none of your coarse, flimsy, slimsy, sleazy kind of stuff, but a good piece of thick, warm, comfortable broadcloth -- such as Bill Hale wears."

    Old New England Traits George Lunt 1844

  • "The jobber sent it up by accident," he explained; "I can't see anything to it -- for the price; it's too slimsy.

    Mountain Blood A Novel Joseph Hergesheimer 1917

Comments

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  • Our plans and ambitions are flimsy,

    Assembled from movies and whimsy,

    But the brutal banality

    Of dreamless reality

    Makes mock of cloud castles so slimsy.

    June 5, 2016