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The below excerpt from "Revolution 2020" by "Chetan Bhagat"

The background story is as follows. One village in India is suffering with some diseases and villagers belongs to that village are dying due to those diseases. The below conversation between a villager and his son

'Baba, will I also die?' Keshav said, his voice a mere thread.

'Stupid boy. What nonsense,'the farmer said.

Here what is the meaning of a mere thread in this context?

Dictionary's meanings:

Mere: used to emphasize how small or insignificant someone or something is

Thread: (1) a long, thin strand of cotton, nylon, or other fibers used in sewing or weaving. (2) a thing resembling a thread in length or thinness, in particular:

Question here: How can voice can compare a thread?

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Have you looked up mere and thread in a dictionary? What did you find? Can you apply the definitions to this sentence? – Andrew Leach Dec 11 '12 at 17:07
OK... it's something very thin. A voice can be thin to the point of hardly being a voice at all. – Andrew Leach Dec 11 '12 at 17:21

closed as general reference by tchrist, Andrew Leach, Robusto, simchona♦ Dec 11 '12 at 19:10

This question is too basic; it can be definitively and permanently answered by a single link to a standard internet reference source designed specifically to find that type of information. See the FAQ for guidance on how to improve it.

1 Answer

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I can see why this one would be confusing. I just checked three dictionaries; each listed five or meanings of the word thread, but none fit this context very well.

The closest I could find was #4 from Collins:

thread (n.) any fine line, stream, mark, or piece : from the air, the path was a thread of white

In this case, the word thread is being used figuratively, it means that Keshav's voice is thin and fragile. Even though that meaning is not explicitly listed in the dictionary, most native speakers would have no problem discerning the meaning, because the word thread is often used figuratively in other contexts. For example, there's the idiom hanging by a thread, which means that someone is in a very dangerous situation, perhaps near death (or a company may be hanging by a thread, if it's at the edge of bankruptcy).

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It may be confusing, but that's a not a function of English, just the metaphor. One might compare a voice to a thread in any language. – Mark Beadles Dec 11 '12 at 18:28
@MarkBeadles: Perhaps that's true. Unfortunately, I'm not fluent in any other languages, so I can't say for sure if comparing a voice to a thread would seem as equally natural in some other language. In English, I don't know if the phrase "his voice a mere eggshell" would sound quite as natural to me (even though we "walk on eggshells"), or "his voice mere lace" (even though lace might be regarded as fragile and delicate), or "his voice a mere strand" (even though strand might be a synonym of thread). So, there might be some English-specific hints, particularly if the character is dying. – J.R. Dec 11 '12 at 19:48

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