emaciation
AmericanEtymology
Origin of emaciation
Explanation
Emaciation is extreme, dangerous thinness. People suffering from emaciation have usually experienced malnutrition because of illness or poverty. If someone goes on a hunger strike for long enough, it will result in emaciation, leaving them looking gaunt and feeling very weak. True emaciation means that there is very little fat left in the person's body, making their bones prominent. This noun comes from the Latin emaciare, "make lean, waste away," and its root, macer, "thin."
Vocabulary lists containing emaciation
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Novel Study: The Road, Pages 1–175
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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.
On Friday, the director of one field hospital said in a statement that they had an unprecedented influx of patients suffering from severe exhaustion, emaciation and acute malnutrition.
From BBC • Jul. 19, 2025
Their medical conditions included a boat strike that caused a skull fracture, severe emaciation and gastric issues, dehydration and inflammation.
From Washington Times • Nov. 30, 2022
The two bodies he was embalming were opposites: one small and bony, almost to the point of emaciation, the other large, the legs and feet swelling with edemas.
From New York Times • Nov. 1, 2022
An Egyptian physician named Hesy-Ra wrote about a mysterious disease that included frequent urination, and caused emaciation.
From Salon • Mar. 12, 2022
The holes in it marked the progress of his emaciation and the leather at one side had a lacquered look to it where he was used to stropping the blade of his knife.
From "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy
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.
