close to the bone

English

Adjective

close to the bone (not comparable)

1. (of a comment, etc.) Penetrating and relatable, to the point of causing discomfort.

   Synonym: too close for comfort

   • 1977 December 10, Arnold W. Klassen, “Looking For Alternatives: A New Political Analysis”, in Gay Community News, volume 5, number 23, page 13:

     The author now brings economics to the personal level, asking and pondering these uneasy, but close-to-the-bone questions: Are we economic people or self-developing persons? Should we look to the proletariat or to all those who love life? Are we suffering from exploitation or from negative symbiosis?

   • 2015 August 6, Leslie Felperin, “The Diary of a Teenage Girl review – a scaldingly honest coming-of-age comedy”, in The Guardian‎:

     So it’s morally complex and sometimes uncomfortably close to the bone, but also lushly bawdy and funny, and packaged together with an astonishing degree of cinematic brio by first-time writer-director Marielle Heller.

   • 2021 August 6, Gaby Hinsliff, “Johnson’s muddle over Covid is a foretaste of his thinking on climate change.”, in The Guardian‎:

     First came the plague, then the flood, and now the fire. This has been a biblical summer, one where the doomsday warnings of climate scientists have felt increasingly close to the bone.

2. Destitute.

   Synonyms: poor, hard up; see also Thesaurus:impoverished

   • 1916, Albert Bigelow Paine, quoting Mark Twain, chapter 53, in The Boys’ Life of Mark Twain:

     We've lived close to the bone and saved every cent we could, and there's no undisputed claim now that we can't cash…