skin and bones

English

Alternative forms

• skin and bone

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

skin and bones

1. A person or an animal that is emaciated or very thin, as from lack of nutrition.

   Look at that starving dog; he's nothing more than skin and bones.

   • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 4:

     "Eh, good evening, sir," she said to me, as she drew herself up to make the best of her own inflated bulky appearance, "come and sit down here and tell me how it fares with you; but, by my troth, you are nothing but skin and bones!"

Synonyms

• bony, gaunt, lanky, scrawny, skinny

Translations

emaciated; very skinny

• Arabic:

  Moroccan Arabic: خنْشة دْ لعْضم (ḵənša d ləʕḍəm) (literally: bag of bones)

• Catalan: en la pell i els óssos
• Cebuano: panit ug bukog
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 皮包骨 (pei⁴ baau¹ gwat¹)

  Hakka: 皮包骨 (phì-pâu-kut), 筋渣膜絡／筋渣膜络 (kîn-châ-mo̍k-lo̍k)

  Mandarin: 骨瘦如柴 (zh) (gǔshòurúchái), 皮包骨 (zh) (píbāogǔ), 皮包骨頭／皮包骨头 (zh)

• Danish: skind og ben
• Finnish: luuta ja nahkaa, luuviulu (fi)
• French: (verb) n’avoir que la peau sur les os (fr), paquet d’os (fr) m
• Galician: pel e ósos
• German: Haut und Knochen (literally “skin and bone[s]”); ein Strich in der Landschaft (literally “a stroke in the landscape”)
• Hungarian: csont és bőr
• Irish: an scrogall is an t-eagán (literally “the neck and the crop”)
• Italian: magro (it) m, smunto (it), tutta pelle, scarnito (it), sciupato (it), scavato (it), macilento (it), scheletrico (it), pelle e ossa, emaciato (it), secco (it), smilzo (it)
• Japanese: (verb) 痩せこけた (やせこけた, yasekoketa)
• Latin: cutis et ossa, pellis et ossa
• Latvian: kauli un āda
• Macedonian: ко́жа и ко́ски (kóža i kóski), ко́ски и ко́жа (kóski i kóža), ко́жа и ко́ска (kóža i kóska), ко́ска и ко́жа (kóska i kóža)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: skinn og bein

  Nynorsk: skinn og bein

• Polish: skóra i kości (pl)
• Portuguese: pele e osso
• Russian: ко́жа да ко́сти (ru) (kóža da kósti), ко́сти да ко́жа (ru) (kósti da kóža), одна́ ко́жа да ко́сти (odná kóža da kósti)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: кост и кожа

  Roman: kost i koža

• Spanish: piel y huesos, escuchimizado, hueso y pellejo
• Swedish: skinn och ben
• Tagalog: buto't balat
• Thai: หนังหุ้มกระดูก
• Walloon: li pea so les oxheas (wa), li pea so les oxhs (wa), banse d' oxheas f

See also

• osteocutaneous