walking skeletons
Ambulatory bare bones
Walking skeletons are people so emaciated that their skeletal structure is visible through the skin—the gaunt figures of famine, concentration camps, or severe illness.
The phrase emphasizes not just thinness but the horror of bodies reduced to bone: The prisoners liberated from the camp were walking skeletons.
It can also describe reanimated skeletal corpses in fantasy and horror contexts.
- emaciatedAbnormally wasted from hunger
- skin and bonesExtreme thinness, no flesh
- jawBone holding teeth
- wasting syndromePathological progressive tissue loss
- gauntLean from deprivation
hollow eyes · cadaverous · bone · hunger · cachexia · memento mori · vanitas · malnutrition · finger · haggard · apparition · spine · rattle · horror tropes · phantom · ghost story · danse macabre · wasting
walking skeletonshale and hearty
In excellent health
robust · thriving · vigorous · healthy · in the pink
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