klein.
slender, thin, slight.
Meaning & usage
slender, thin, slight.
sick, unwell, poorly.
Han følte seg klein etter frokosten.
of weak health; sickly, feeble, frail.
poor, bad, weak, shoddy; in bad condition or of low quality.
Det var kleint arbeid.
of a person: not very capable or skilled; poor, feeble, inept.
Han er klein til å lese.
awkward, embarrassing, cringeworthy.
Det ble en klein situasjon.
Where this word comes from
Borrowed from Middle Low German kleine (“thin, fine”), also klêne (“thin, fine”), from Old Saxon klēni (“delicate, fine”), from Proto-West Germanic *klainī (“fine, small; clean”), from Proto-Germanic *klainiz (“clean, clear, pure; fine, small”). The deeper etymology is uncertain. Compare Norwegian Nynorsk klein, Danish klejn, Swedish klen, Icelandic klénn, German klein, Dutch klein and English clean. Old Norse klénn (“snug; little, puny”) was borrowed from Middle Low German.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.