Emily Dickinson Lexicon

LEAN'NESS, n.

1. Destitution of fat; want of flesh; thinness of body; meagerness; applied to animals.
2. Want of matter; poverty; emptiness; as, the leanness of a purse. – Shak.
3. In Scripture, want of grace and spiritual comfort. He sent leanness into their soul. Ps. cvi.