skin and bones, (nothing but)

skin and bones, (nothing but)

Emaciated; painfully thin. This hyperbole has been around since the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans; Theocritus, Plautus, and Virgil are among the ancient writers who used it. An unknown fifteenth-century writer stated, “Now . . . Me is lefts But skyn and boon” (Hymns to the Virgin and Child, ca. 1430).See also: and, skin