Adjective

(er)

Slender or thin; not well filled out; not plump; shrunken; lean.

* Meager and lank with fasting grown. - .

* Who would not choose ... to have rather a lank purse than an empty brain? - .

* Blacks in the fields, lank'' and stooped, their fingers spiderlike among the bolls of cotton. - 1985 , chapter 1.

(of hair) Straight and flat; thin and limp. (often associated with being greasy)

* Lank hair, long, thin hair. -

(obsolete) languid; drooping.

* Who, piteous of her woes, reared her lank head. -

(Macaulay)

Adjective

(er)

lean, angular and bony

* {{quote-book

, year=1894 , author=Joseph Jacobs , title=The Fables of Aesop , chapter=1 citation , passage=A gaunt Wolf was almost dead with hunger when he happened to meet a House-dog who was passing by.}}

haggard, drawn and emaciated

* {{quote-book

, year=1917 , author=Arthur Conan Doyle , title=His Last Bow , chapter=5 citation , passage=In the dim light of a foggy November day the sick room was a gloomy spot, but it was that gaunt , wasted face staring at me from the bed which sent a chill to my heart.}}

bleak, barren and desolate

* {{quote-book

, year=1908 , author=William Hope Hodgson , title=The House on the Borderland , chapter=14 citation , passage=Behind me, rose up, to an extraordinary height, gaunt , black cliffs. }}