373 Through thick and thin

One Idiom One Day: Through thick and thin

Thank you for standing by me through thick and thin for all of these years.

to support someone through good and bad times, no matter how challenging or difficult

The phrase dates back to the 1300s. It is believed that it relates to entering a dark forest, in some places the trees are thick and overgrown while in other places it is sparse and easy to navigate. During this time the majority of England was covered in wooded areas. It is derived from an old hunting expression “through thicket and thin wood.” The thicket is a group of trees or bushes that grow close together. The first recorded use of the phrase can be found in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, (1387 – 1400).

E.g., If he really loved you he would have stuck by you through thick and thin. Instead, he left when things got hard.

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