big-boned
Americanadjective
Etymology
Origin of big-boned
First recorded in 1600–10
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
As the American painter recalled years later, Borger in the 1920s was a settlement of “rough shacks, oil rigs, pungent stinks from gas pockets, and broad-faced, big-boned Texas oil speculators.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
These big-boned people pursued a semi-nomadic life on the steppes, tamed animals, kept domestic cattle and moved over large areas using horses and carts.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 8, 2024
The bassist Omer Avital makes big-boned, ebullient, swinging music with a spine that’s equal parts 1950s Blue Note records and timeless Middle Eastern modes.
From New York Times ● Mar. 30, 2018
You dislike euphemisms for fatness like "big" or "big-boned."
From Los Angeles Times ● May 20, 2016
From the outside, they looked like all types of kids: short, tall, tiny, big-boned, brown-skinned, white-skinned, brown-haired, blond-haired, dressed as dancers, dressed as athletes, wearing goggles like they were about to do a science experiment....
From "The School for Whatnots" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
