bag of bones

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

bag of bones (plural bags of bones)

1. (idiomatic) A skinny, malnourished person or animal.
   • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 211:

     Bradly came out from hiding with a dyspeptic grunt, too depressed by ignominy to send a curse after the old woman. That old bag of bones to bring down cataclysm on him! That old thing the nemesis of an inspired aspiration!

• rickle o' banes (chiefly Scotland)

• all skin and bones