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Thickset describes a body that is broad, solid and strong-looking, usually with the person being short or of average height rather than tall. Picture a wrestler, a rugby player, or an old farmer with wide shoulders and a deep chest. The word tells you about build, not about weight, and this is the important part: a thickset man is not necessarily fat. He is put together heavily — wide bones, thick neck, low centre of gravity. It is an adjective, and it comes before the noun or after 'be': a thickset man, he was thickset. It is used almost entirely about people (occasionally about animals like bulldogs), and it is formal or literary — you meet it in novels and in police descriptions of a suspect, more than in daily conversation. It is neutral to slightly positive; it suggests strength rather than shapelessness, which is why 'stocky' is its closest everyday partner. The spelling is worth a second: thick + set, meaning 'set (put together) thickly'. English has a small family of these -set about how a body or object is arranged — 'well-set', 'close-set eyes'. Once you see 'set' as 'positioned', the word explains itself.
身材粗壯結實、虎背熊腰的（多半個子不高但很壯）。注意不是「胖」，是骨架寬、肌肉厚那種壯。
組成thick (broad, solid) + set (in its old sense 'placed, put together, built'). So: built thickly. The same 'set' appears in 'well-set' and 'close-set'.
原始詞典資料6 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
thicksetadj/ˈθɪkˌsɛt/
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Having a relatively short, heavy build.
- a thickset, muscular figure
- a thickset workhorse
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Densely crowded together; made up of things that are densely crowded together; closely planted.
- a thickset wood
- a thickset hedge
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Densely covered (with something).
- a gully thickset with brambles
- 1583, John Foxe, Acts and Monuments, London: John Day, Book 4, “The tragicall historie of Gregorie the vij. otherwise named Hildebrand,” p. 177, […] in a vessell being thick set with sharpe nayles, he tormented him to the poynt of death:
thicksetnoun/ˈθɪkˌsɛt/
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obsoleteA thick hedge.
- 1858, Edward Bulwer-Lytton (as Pisistratus Caxton), What Will He Do with It? Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, Volume 4, Book 11, Chapter 7, p. 294, Had Darrell been placed amidst the circumstances that make happy the homes of earnest men, Darrell would have been mirthful; had Waife been placed amongst the circumstances that concentrate talent, and hedge round life with trained thicksets and belting laurels, Waife would have been grave.
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historicalA stout, twilled cotton cloth; a fustian corduroy, or velveteen.
- 1812, George Crabbe, Tales, London: J. Hatchard, Tale 4, “Procrastination,” p. 73, When he, with thickset coat of Badge-man’s blue, Moves near her shaded silk of changeful hue;
- 1829, anonymous contributor, “A Day at Fontainebleau.—The Royal Hunt,” The Monthly Magazine, New Series, Volume 7, No. 37, January 1829, p. 12, His breeches were of the homeliest thickset;
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historicalA piece of clothing made from this fabric.
- […] his coat was originally what is called a thickset, but out at the elbows;
- I had observed that our landlord wore, on that memorable morning, a pair of bran new velveteens instead of his ancient thicksets.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。