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scrawny

[skraw-nee]

Example Sentences Origin

adjective, scrawn·i·er, scrawn·i·est.

excessively thin; lean; scraggy: a long, scrawny neck.

Origin:
1825–35, Americanism; variant of dial. scranny < Norwegian skran lean + -y¹

Related forms

scrawn·i·ly, adverb

scrawn·i·ness, noun

Synonyms
gaunt, emaciated.

Antonyms
fleshy, plump.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To scrawny

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Scrawny is always a great word to know.

So is bezoar. Does it mean:

a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.

a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.

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Example Sentences

The parasite can leave the birds too scrawny for market.

Probably because the rest of her body is so scrawny.

The scrawny young soldier, forgoing any subtleties, merely rubbed his fingers together in an age-old gesture.

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The parasite can leave the birds too scrawny for market.

Probably because the rest of her body is so scrawny.

The scrawny young soldier, forgoing any subtleties, merely rubbed his fingers together in an age-old gesture.

Khandal's informant points to a solitary hut at the edge of a field outside the village, behind two scrawny trees.

Several scrawny cottonwood trees do not usually generate much excitement in the world of ecology.

Grateful knock-kneed boys with scrawny arms and sunken chests reported that their lives had been turned around.

In ounce-for-ounce comparison, mammals and reptiles are scrawny weaklings next to birds.

They had lean torsos and narrow shoulders and scrawny legs.

Even guard dogs must be imported: local pooches are too scrawny and insufficiently savage.

Sadly, my intensive investigations soon wore out the scrawny scope.

Its arms were probably so scrawny because it didn't use them at all.

Pigs, goats and scrawny dogs graze among the chunks of concrete.

The front gate was guarded by a scrawny teenage soldier who had not been paid in months.

Scrawny babies were much more likely to suffer heart problems in middle age.

But the scrawny and diseased trees that come from forest treatments have few commercial uses.

My concern is that he has hang-ups about women being all scrawny and stuff.

The rest, owned one or two to a family by villagers, are too scrawny and diseased to interest agro.

Short, scrawny and sickly, he suffered from a hypochondria that convinced him he would.

With unfused vertebrae and scrawny shin and ankle bones, the skeleton was almost certainly that of a juvenile.

Ross was a scrawny forty-five-year-old with a master's degree in art history and a job as an elementary school janitor.

Out of season shad is scrawny and thin, but in season it is plump and succulent.

They're a scrawny pound or two, plucked, and are usually sold with the head and feet.

Certain branches such as the song recital remain rather scrawny and underdeveloped, but that is not surprising.

Haim underwent rehabilitation for addictions to prescription pills and cocaine and outgrew his once scrawny form and image.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

scrawny (ˈskrɔːnɪ)

—*adj* , scrawnier, scrawniest
1.	very thin and bony; scraggy
2.	meagre or stunted: scrawny vegetation

[C19: variant of dialect scranny; see scrannel]

'scrawnily

—*adv*

'scrawniness

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

scrawny

1833, apparently a dialectal variant of scranny "lean, thin" (1820), which is of uncertain origin, perhaps from O.N. skrælna "to shrivel."

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emaciated roly-poly scrag scraggy

scraggy skinny thin

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scrawny

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