skinny as a rail
1
7.0
- idiom
- Informal
- I was there once on my last nickel and skinny as a rail.
Examples
-
You're skinny as a rail, and everyone is concerned about your health.
-
"Mean as a snake, skinny as a rail."
Fiction book (1999) -
He was only 14... and skinny as a rail!
-
You're skinny as a rail.
-
He came to Washington State skinny as a rail, looking like he'd never really picked up a weight.
Blog text (32) -
All those doughnuts consumed around the age of thirteen, when she was skinny as a rail, her half-slip always slinking down ("A family without elastic," thought Mrs. Rodgers, "that was us"), and now everything that had ever been slinking down was catching up with her.
Fiction book (2002) -
He came to Washington State skinny as a rail, looking like he'd never really picked up a weight.
-
In high school, she was skinny as a rail and often teased by her classmates.
Synonyms
349
1.3
Very thin in a way that looks unhealthy
310
1.0
Having little body fat and a slim shape
140
2.5
Thin with little extra fat or money
91
1.0
Thin and with little body fat
44
4.2
Very thin and weak in a way that looks unhealthy
14
3.2
Thin and not strongly built
11
7.8
Extremely thin from illness or lack of food with bones showing
8
3.1
Very thin and below a healthy weight for their age and height
3
6.0
Very thin with bones showing under the skin
2
3.4
Thin so you can see or feel the bones
1
6.0
Very thin in a way that looks like a small branch
1
4.5
An animal or object with a slim, narrow body
1
3.5
Having a thin, narrow body shape
1
4.6
Having a long thin body
Antonyms
How Thin
11
7.8
- Informal
1
7.0
- Informal
12
5.6
349
1.3
310
1.0
91
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is a straightforward simile using the common comparative pattern 'as X as Y' where 'skinny' (very thin) is being likened to a 'rail'—a long, thin bar—so the intensified meaning 'extremely thin' is directly inferable from the parts. This compositional pattern is cross-linguistically common and thus should be understandable to a B1 learner who knows the constituent words.
Etymology
The phrase skinny as a rail may come from the picture of a long, thin metal rail on train tracks. Saying someone is skinny like a rail makes it easy to see they are very thin, so the phrase means 'extremely thin'.