all skin and bones
Dangerously, visibly underweight
All skin and bones describes someone or something extremely thin, as if the body has no flesh—only skin stretched over the skeleton.
The phrase emphasizes alarming or unhealthy thinness: After his illness, he was all skin and bones.
Sometimes shortened to skin and bones or inverted as nothing but skin and bones.
- lankFlat and lifeless
- weedyOvergrown with unwanted plants
- scrawnyUnattractively thin and bony
- thin as a railExtremely underweight or slender
- gauntLean from deprivation
twiggy · slim · thin · emaciated · spare · starved · angular · skeletal · wiry · frail · underweight · fleshless · spindly · rawboned · wasting · wasting away · lean · bony
- appearance idiomsall dolled up, dolled up, done up, dressed to kill, dressed to the nines
all skin and bonesfat
Adipose tissue
obese · corpulent · overweight · heavyset · portly
all skin and boneswell-fed
Adequately nourished
robust · hale and hearty · thriving · flourishing · fit
skin, skins, skinned, skinning, skinny, skinnier, skinniest, skinless, bone