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Glite Dictionary
bare bone

bare bone

1 6.3
A bone with no meat on it
  • noun
  • /bɛr boʊn/
translation icon : hueso desnudo
  • After the animal was skinned, only the bare bone remained.

Examples

  • The archaeologist carefully excavated the bare bone to analyze its age.

  • I told my mom that the only satisfaction I will get from all of this is seeing all of the mindless, numb robots who are marching lockstep with their dear leader when they are silenced, starving, chained, and stripped to their bare bones.

    Blog text (2)

  • The lamb has been eaten to the bare bone. Dr. Evil: Fine.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • A bare bone glistened from her wrist.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • In the museum, I saw a display featuring a bare bone from an ancient dinosaur.

Surface Forms

bare bone singular
bare bones plural

Morphology

bare + bone

The meaning 'a bone from which all flesh has been removed' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'bare' (exposed, lacking covering) with 'bone' (the skeletal material). This adjective + noun composition is a standard descriptive pattern found across languages, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

The noun bare bone comes from the simple image of a bare bone left after meat has been picked away by birds or people, so it means 'a bone with no flesh'.