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View synonyms for skin and bones
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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Word 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.Discover More
Example Sentences
Toward the end William looked like the skin-and-bones remnant of a saint.
From Project Gutenberg
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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