emaciated
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of emaciated
Explanation
Someone who is dangerously skinny and skeletal-looking can be described as emaciated. It's probably how you'd start to look after a few weeks in the wilderness with only berries and bugs for dinner. The adjective emaciated evolved from the Latin emaciatus, meaning to “make lean, waste away.” An emaciated person or animal isn't just thin. They're bony, gaunt, and most likely undernourished, often from illness. So if an emaciated stray cat shows up on your doorstep, give it a bowl of milk and maybe pay a visit to the vet.
Vocabulary lists containing emaciated
List 3
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A Long Walk to Water
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The Hunger Games
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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.
And while Rahman, 60, has on occasion been the de-facto chair of an emaciated BNP when his mother was jailed and more recently when she was ill, he's largely seen as an untested leader.
From BBC ● Feb. 13, 2026
Officers searched him and found two emaciated and potentially sedated orange-fronted parakeets — the victims of an alleged botched smuggling attempt — stuffed in his underwear, according to court documents.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 30, 2026
An emaciated and apparently blind man stands in the snow at the Nazi concentration camp of Flossenbuerg: the image seems real at first but is part of a wave of AI-generated content about the Holocaust.
From Barron's ● Jan. 27, 2026
Oli Barrington, a trustee at the exotic animal charity, said the dogs, who were found emaciated, were now in a "comfortable, safe and recovering from the ordeal".
From BBC ● Jan. 11, 2026
Then he washed his hands, threw the oilcloth over himself, and before midnight he returned with a few strings of dried meat, several bags of rice, corn with weevils, and some emaciated bunches of bananas.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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.
