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

The last time their daughter saw her father, "he couldn't get out of bed. He was literally skin and bones," Gamboa said.

From Salon ● Apr. 10, 2023

Differences between the Eco Edison and vessels built for offshore and deep water oil rigs aren’t yet apparent as the skin and bones of the towering ship take shape in a 120-foot-tall waterside assembly building.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 4, 2023

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

Like us, their heads were shaved and they were skin and bones.

From "The Boy on the Wooden Box" by Leon Leyson

Related Words

• bony
• gaunt
• scrawny
• skeletal
• skinny