bag of bones

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

bag of bones (plural bags of bones)

1. (idiomatic) A skinny, malnourished person or animal.
   • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 211:

     Bradly came out from hiding with a dyspeptic grunt, too depressed by ignominy to send a curse after the old woman. That old bag of bones to bring down cataclysm on him! That old thing the nemesis of an inspired aspiration!

Synonyms

• rickle o' banes (chiefly Scotland)

Translations

a skinny person

Chinese: Mandarin: 骨瘦如柴 (zh) (gǔshòurúchái) Dutch: scharminkel (nl) m or n Estonian: kondikubu, luu ja nahk Finnish: luukasa French: sac d’os (fr) m, paquet d’os (fr) m German: Haut und Knochen (skin and bones) Greek: Ancient: κάναβος m (kánabos) Hungarian: csontkollekció (hu) Japanese: 痩せっぽち (やせっぽち, yaseppochi) Russian: ко́жа да ко́сти (ru) (kóža da kósti) (skin and bones), мешо́к с костя́ми m (mešók s kostjámi), живы́е мо́щи m pl (živýje móšči) (live relic), Коще́й бессме́ртный m (Koščéj bessmértnyj) ("Koshchey immortal", a spirit in the Slavic mythology) Swedish: benrangel (sv) n

See also

• all skin and bones