skin and bones

American  

Or skin and bone

noun

1. a condition or state of extreme thinness, usually the result of malnutrition; emaciation.

   Anorexia had reduced her to skin and bones.

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skin and bones Idioms  

1. Painfully thin, emaciated. This phrase often is expanded to nothing but skin and bones, as in She came home from her trip nothing but skin and bones. This hyperbolic expression—one could hardly be alive without some flesh—dates from the early 1400s.

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Etymology

Origin of skin and bones

late Middle English word dating back to 1400–50

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

skin and bones

Baroness Golding said her dad told her of people at the camps who were "skin and bones with vacant eyes".

From BBC ● May 5, 2025

Shred chicken into bite sized pieces, discarding skin and bones.

From Salon ● Feb. 27, 2025

“I told myself before the game, he’s made of skin and bones just like everyone else — but I was wrong.”

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 29, 2022

What remains on the landscape is a body of skin and bones that then slowly desiccates and deflates, eventually preserved for the eons.

From New York Times ● Oct. 12, 2022

Her father was down to ninety pounds, just skin and bones, and he was in pain and miserable.

From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston

Related Words

• bony
• gaunt
• scrawny
• skeletal
• skinny