SKIN AND BONES Definition & Meaning

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skin and bones

or skin and bone

noun

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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51�Թ� History and Origins

Origin of skin and bones¹

late Middle English word dating back to 1400–50

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Idioms and Phrases

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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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

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

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

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“When my brother came, he was skin and bones,” Ms. Laveus said.

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Lodge sometimes took the body parts - which included heads, brains, skin and bones - back to his home while some remains were sent to buyers through the mail, authorities allege.

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Lodge sometimes took the body parts — which included heads, brains, skin and bones — back to his home while some remains were sent to buyers through the mail, authorities allege.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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