scrawny
Americanadjective
adjective
-
very thin and bony; scraggy
-
meagre or stunted
scrawny vegetation
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of scrawny
1825–35, variant of dial. scranny < Norwegian skran lean + -y 1
Explanation
Scrawny is an insulting way to describe someone who's very thin and weak. You might be surprised by how lifting weights transformed your scrawny teammate to a muscular athlete by the end of the season. The adjective scrawny can describe a small, underweight body but it can also describe anything that's not very big or well-made — a scrawny tree that never gets any taller or fuller or a scrawny audience that disappoints the band because they were expecting a sold-out concert. Scrawny may have come from the Old Norse word skraelna, to shrivel.
Vocabulary lists containing scrawny
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
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List 8
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"The Hunger Games" Vocabulary from Chapter 1
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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.
See Examples For:
In a Broadway season notable for the strength of its musical revivals, there has been some concern that the best new musical Tony Award category might be particularly scrawny this year.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 1, 2026
Lotkoy Ebey has just five scrawny goats to her name where she once had 50.
From BBC ● Mar. 19, 2026
He was sitting on a curb beneath a scrawny tree, trying to get some shade, and coughing.
From Slate ● Jan. 27, 2026
Friends and family were skeptical of the scrawny teen.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2025
That night I wished on a star that someday my scrawny legs would fill out into that lovely shape and that the hair on them would be as long and straight and black.
From "When I Was Puerto Rican" by Esmeralda Santiago
He’s also the younger of three brothers who grew up as scrawnier than many fellow humans, then learned to fend with that and then some.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 7, 2023
Though scrawnier than Western varieties, the chickens have a darker-hued meat that the Taiwanese swear is superior in taste and nutrition.
From Slate ● May 8, 2017
A more natural choice would be tween-dreamy, an actor with a scrawnier frame beneath that torso-hugging tunic.
From New York Times ● Aug. 22, 2014
Durant has been playing with the Goodman League since he was an even scrawnier 16-year-old, hoping to earn a reputation.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 14, 2011
He grew thinner, his cheeks more hollow, his neck scrawnier.
From "Homeless Bird" by Gloria Whelan
Grant Hill: You know, Michael, there once was this kid, the scrawniest, geekiest kid you ever saw.
From Slate ● May 5, 2019
Instead, Stern offered the “Trump Tree,” which the tycoon, in “The Art of the Deal” dismissed as one of “the ugliest, scrawniest little trees you’re ever likely to see.”
From Washington Post ● Oct. 6, 2015
Kharey Wise, by far the scrawniest of the group, happened to be the only one old enough to spend all his time in adult jail and prison.
From New York Times ● Nov. 21, 2012
As the scrawniest of the four Kennedy boys, he was lost amid the the physical grace and athletic prowess of his brothers.
From Time Magazine Archive
Always they were the scrawniest or the ugliest or the dirtiest or the stupidest boys, picked on by everyone else, with no one left uglier or stupider than they but her.
From "The Midwife's Apprentice" by Karen Cushman
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.
