Meaning
Extremely thin, so that the frame shows through the flesh; used of people or animals who are gaunt, undernourished, or emaciated. Often intensified as nothing but skin and bones, it is hyperbole for visible wasting rather than mere slenderness, and it can sound blunt or pitying when said directly about a person. Informal and vivid; sympathetic or harsh depending on context, so often softened with nothing but. Regional use: General English.
Origin
A hyperbole natural enough to surface early: Dictionary.com's entry, drawing on Random House and the American Heritage Idioms Dictionary, dates the idiom to the early 1400s in late Middle English, when skin and bone described a body reduced to little more than its coverings. The older and still current British form is singular (skin and bone), while the plural predominates in American usage. The picture needs no derivation beyond itself - a frame so wasted that only skin and skeleton remain - and no folk story or literary allusion lies behind it in the reference record.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a bag of bones
- nothing but skin and bones
- reduced to skin and bones
- skin and bone
Usage Examples
- The stray was nothing but skin and bones when the shelter took her in, but six months of regular meals transformed her.
- After the surgery he came back to work looking like skin and bones, so we made him take it easy.
- The old pony was skin and bones by spring, and the vet put him on a feeding plan to bring his weight back.