Scrawny

//ˈskɹɔni// adj

adj ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Thin, malnourished, and weak.

    "“Tell him, in these words, that I will have his scrawny bones before me now. Tell him, Byar, and bring him if you must arrest him and those filthy wretches who disgrace the Children. Go.”"

Adjective
  1. 1
    being very thin wordnet
  2. 2
    inferior in size or quality wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
underweightabstemiousangularangularanorecticanorexic

Example

More examples

"For the past few years, teenagers who imitate overweight American rappers have been walking like inverted pendulums, swinging from left to right, which is the only way forward if you weigh over two hundred and sixty pounds, but completely ineffective if you are a scrawny teenager weighing half of that, since most of the energy is wasted on side steps, not to mention the sheer absurdity of that swinging gait."

Etymology

A variant of dialectal scranny (“thin; lean; scraggy; poor; scanty; of inferior quality”), perhaps from Old Norse skran (“rubbish; junk”) + -y. Compare Norwegian skran (“lean, thin, skinny”), English scrannel (“lean; meager; poor; worthless”). Alternatively, perhaps from Old Norse skrælna (“to be shrivelled”).

Related phrases

scrawny drink of water

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.