bare bones
the irreducible minimum; the most essential components: Reduce this report to its bare bones. There is nothing left of the town but the bare bones—a couple of stores, a church, and a few houses.
Origin of bare bones
1Other words from bare bones
- bare-bones, adjective
Words Nearby bare bones
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use bare bones in a sentence
This year, a bare-bones welfare program will continue into the New Year without being updated.
To GOP Congress, as Usual, It’s Welfare on the Chopping Block | Monica Potts | December 25, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTMaybe, just maybe he'd be able to get the message across if he stripped it down to its bare bones.
Are Politicians Too Dumb to Understand the Lyrics to ‘Born in the USA’? | Parker Molloy | November 6, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTThe bare bones of an already-anemic effort to fight the epidemic in West Africa that is threatening to destroy the entire region.
Doctors Without Borders Hits Ebola Breaking Point | Abby Haglage, Kent Sepkowitz | October 21, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTAs TechCrunch pointed out, the brilliance in its bare bones appeal could reach a worth of one billion dollars.
He was getting only the bare bones, none of the rich details that make a book sing.
The Night Vince Lombardi Lay Awake Brooding Over a 49-0 Win | W.C. Heinz | January 25, 2014 | THE DAILY BEAST
Here in a few paragraphs are the bare bones of the plan described in eighty of Henry James's pages.
Instigations | Ezra PoundA lot of speculation necessarily clothed the bare bones of Jones' information.
The Hour of Battle | Robert SheckleyHiawatha looked on wistfully to see them eat till they were fully satisfied, and they left him nothing but the bare bones.
Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) | VariousIt was the bare bones of this old earth, as sombre and foreboding as any ruin of granite under the wrack of the bleak north.
Old Junk | H. M. TomlinsonI have lived to see the people who go into the desert for adventure, and whose bare bones are all any man looks on again!
The Treasure Trail | Marah Ellis Ryan
British Dictionary definitions for bare-bones
basic or simple; no-frills
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Other Idioms and Phrases with bare bones
The mere essentials or plain, unadorned framework of something, as in This outline gives just the bare bones of the story; details will come later. This phrase transfers the naked skeleton of a body to figurative use. [c. 1900]
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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