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tallish

tallish

1 3.0
Fairly tall but not very tall
  • adjective
  • /ˈtɔlɪʃ/
  • Informal
translation icon : algo alto
  • The tallish girl easily reached the top shelf to grab the book her friend wanted.
  • a tallish man
  • a tallish woman

Examples

  • Into Hassan's, I saw enter a tallish wraith of a man... ...face hooded by his headdress.

  • All right, so another tallish plant is this Galaxy Glow Euphorbia.

  • They were tallish and fair, thin and awkward.

    Fiction book (1995)
  • Just then the front door swooshed open, and in walked a tallish, skinny boy about fourteen.

    Fiction book (1990)
  • The dark hair and blue eyes came from his mother, a tallish woman who went about her housewifely work with a perpetual air of anxiety.

    Fiction book (2001)
  • Now he was beginning to recall brief glimpses of a tallish, fair, vaguely attractive girl who looked a lot like his aunt.

    Fiction book (2001)
  • She was tallish, slender, and wore soft dresses and gauzy scarves of vibrant colors.

    Fiction book (1998)
  • At seventeen, Marjorie was tallish (5' 7" or so), but she had never gone through anything like an awkward phase, and already it was clear she was going to be a knockout.

    Fiction book (2001)
  • Lois had to strain a little over this because Lucy was so blond, with translucent skin and large blue eyes like a doll's, and Lois was nothing out of the ordinary, just a tallish, thinnish, brownish person with freckles.

    Fiction book (1990)
  • He was tallish, with a slightly awkward gait that made him stand out in the crowd.

Synonyms

tall
vstallish
1.0

Higher than most people or things of the same kind

is a milder term meaning only somewhat above average height

Antonyms

1.0

Not long in distance, height, or time

How Tall

towering
4.0
tall
1.0
tallish
  • Informal
1 3.0
short
1.0

Surface Forms

tallish positive
tallisher comparative
tallishest superlative

Morphology

tallish = tall (transparent) = tall + ish

Formed by the productive adjectival suffix '-ish' meaning 'somewhat' or 'rather', so the meaning is directly derivable from 'tall'.

Etymology

The word tallish is simply tall plus the ending -ish, which means 'somewhat' or 'a little like', and you see the same -ish in words like smallish and greenish. So tallish means 'somewhat tall', not very tall but a bit taller than usual.