skin and bones

1. 1.

   a person who is unusually thin and scrawny

   Synonymsthin personscrag

   Broaderperson

   Narrowerspindlelegs

Questions about skin and bones

What does skin and bones mean?

skin and bones means "a person who is unusually thin and scrawny".

What is another word for skin and bones?

Close synonyms include thin person, scrag. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is skin and bones a common word?

skin and bones is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.