slight-limbed

Updated: June 13, 2025

This Lion was a large masculine woman, and Shepherd a very little slight-limbed lad, so that whenever he had been drinking and came to her quarrelsome, Bess often beat him into better temper, though Shepherd upon other occasions manifested his wanting neither courage nor strength.

Arthur L. Hayward - Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences

What was to be done? Disobey their uncle, or leave this lad to perish? Only a lad, slight-limbed and slenderly framed to the eye, yet for all that gifted with a gallant heart, else he surely must have been cowed to terror by the huge bulk of such a dire adversary at close quarters.

Jos. E. (Joseph Edward) Badger - The Lost City

'A little, slight-limbed lad, says the historian of Sheppard. 'A thin, spare frame, sings the poet of Cartouche. Here, then, neither had the advantage, and if in the shades Cartouche despises the clumsiness and vulgarity of his rival, Sheppard may still remember the glory of Newgate, and twit the Frenchman with the barking of the boxmaker's dog.

Charles Whibley - A Book of Scoundrels