bare bones

See more synonyms for bare bones on Thesaurus.com

plural noun

the irreducible minimum; the most essential components: Reduce this report to its bare bones. There is nothing left of the town but the bare bones—a couple of stores, a church, and a few houses.

Origin of bare bones

First recorded in 1910–15

Related formsbare-bones, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for barebones

rustic, unadorned, stark, bleak, subdued, bald, bare, clean, dour, plain, primitive, severe, simple, spare, spartan, unembellished, vanilla, bare-bones

Examples from the Web for barebones

Contemporary Examples of barebones

From that meeting, they generate a barebones, two-page outline.
This Is How an Episode of Cartoon Network’s ‘Adventure Time’ Is Made
Rich Goldstein
December 19, 2013

Historical Examples of barebones

He was a prominent member of the Barebones Parliament, but after its extinction ceased to exercise any political influence.
State Trials, Political and Social
Various
Barebones' Parliament, a body full of stiff-backed and fanatical Independents, soon proved too restive for its creator.
A History of England
Charles Oman
Your Barebones, and Hop-an'-jumps, and creatures of that vulgar herd, are quite out of my category.'
Miss Elliot's Girls
Mrs Mary Spring Corning
And old Father Murray is just the dearest old man ever was, and hasn't got a long, solemn face like Mr. Barebones.
The Actress' Daughter
May Agnes Fleming

Idioms and Phrases with barebones

bare bones

The mere essentials or plain, unadorned framework of something, as in This outline gives just the bare bones of the story; details will come later. This phrase transfers the naked skeleton of a body to figurative use. [c. 1900]