Someone describes you as 'Quite slim' - what does that mean to you?

[FortunateSass]

Genuine question.. would you interpret it as Larger side of Slim? Borderline overweight? Almost Slim?
I've struggled with my body image my entire life, hid behind baggy clothes and loose fitting outfits.
The past few years I finally feel more at peace with my body and have started to wear my fitted clothes.
Today after discussing my lunch choice (salad) my colleague asked why I always eat healthy, I explained I wanted to shift a few pounds to which they said "Why? You're already quite slim?"

@CharlotteBog Thanks for the reply to @NannyGythaOgg - They're clearly having a bad evening / day / life

'Quite' is an interesting word, the meaning of which varies by social class. If you are working class or lower middle class, it means 'moderately'. If you are posh, it means 'very'.

He means you are attractively slender but he feels awkward about sounding as if he’s paying you a compliment and worried he might offend. Typical British awkwardness!

It's a polite way of saying you're attractively built, and not worryingly thin. I don't know you, but it could mean size 8 (or less if you're very short) , size 12... something not extreme, healthy looking... definitely a compliment

Same as this.

No, in my example Im not saying wind aggressive or violent it means very in that context, you were saying it was used in Irish context to use very

Fierce meaning fierce wind or fierce fire means strong, heavy, a lot of, so a fierce wind means its very windy (ie there is a lot of wind in that windyness)

There is an overlap with it also being aggressive of violent wind

Anyway, the word on this thread is quite. Which means a lot of it, or very much so.

I think the issue here is that not only is quite subjective but slim is too. Everyone has a different idea of what slim looks like.

Also, as he’s a man and your friend, he might not want you to think he’s hitting on you at work.

Yes, to me, slim is lower end of healthy but others on this thread have even included lower end of overweight, which I can't get my head around!

And also meaning very slim up to unhealthily underweight, as we also get told repeatedly that people of that size find the words skinny and thin to be pejorative or not representative of how fat they believe they are.

Gosh @soupfiend you'll argue any position, even when clearly wrong!!

No, in my example Im not saying wind aggressive or violent it means very in that context, you were saying it was used in Irish context to use very

You simply were not!

You said I use fierce, fierce wind, fierce fire, fierce meaning a lot of, ie a strong wind, a windy wind, thats literally what fierce means

There is no way you are using 'fierce' as 'very' here - it simply wouldn't make sense! e.g. 'very wind' or 'very fire'. Honestly don't be silly.

You were using fierce to represent the strength of the matter - fire, wind etc, which is meaning 1, the conventional meaning.

Fierce meaning fierce wind or fierce fire means strong, heavy, a lot of, so a fierce wind means its very windy (ie there is a lot of wind in that windyness)

Yes, that's right - it means the wind or fire is very strong or very hot - representing the violent / strong whatever nature of the matter you are representing. It's using fierce in it's conventional sense.

Anyway, the word on this thread is quite. Which means a lot of it, or very much so.

Correct. And your point, some posts before was that words only have one meaning (including 'quite') which is not the case, with 'quite', nor with many other words, and that's why I gave you another example of 'fierce'.

HTH!

I'd say quite slim would be a size 12 ish, proportionate to height. I'm 5'5" and would like to be quite slim by that measure. I'm currently quite plump (size 14-16).

I think a lot of what people think of as quite slim means 'a bit thinner than me'.

I may be delusional about this.

This is a great explanation! This is how I see it too.

A non-native English speaker here and I understand "quite" as "close to".
"Quite slim" = close to being slim. Size 8-10 depending on height I guess

I would say it means fairly slim but not skinny. So if a person’s idea of slim is size 8-10, you would be in the middle band of that. Of course everyone’s interpretation of “slim” is different so not sure what you can really take from it. I am sure it was not meant insultingly though.