skeletonize

especially British, skel·e·ton·ise

[skel-i-tn-ahyz]

verb (used with object)

skeletonized, skeletonizing 

1. to reduce to a skeleton, outline, or framework.

2. to reduce in size or number, as a military unit.

3. to construct in outline.

skeletonize

/ ˈskɛlɪtəˌnaɪz /

verb

1. to reduce to a minimum framework, number, or outline

2. to create the essential framework of

Other Word Forms

• skeletonization noun
• skeletonizer noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of skeletonize¹

First recorded in 1635–45; skeleton + -ize

Example Sentences

It will skeletonize the leaves of plants and eat flowers such as roses.

Read more on Seattle Times

The forensic-anthropology center at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has a similar policy, although it will occasionally “skeletonize” remains for institutions with which it has a relationship, like the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

Read more on The New Yorker

Rarely do watch manufacturers skeletonize a sports watch’s mechanism.

Read more on Forbes

It was the domain of the lab’s most prodigious workers: a colony of dermestids, flesh-eating beetles that are deployed to “skeletonize” bird and mammal carcasses, so the bones can be examined as evidence or added to the lab’s standards collection.

Read more on New York Times

By the time I’m done with a book, most of my review of it is scrawled in the back pages, and, when I run out of space, on the front matter, curving around the colophon or the note on the type like a swarm of army ants on their way to skeletonize a baby deer.

Read more on Time

Related Words

• chalk 
• chart 
• delineate 
• depict 
• lay out 
• paint 
• portray