bony

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adjective

Definition of BONY

1

having a noticeably small amount of body fat <that bony old horse may have been deliberately starved>

Synonyms bony (also boney), fatless, lean, lithe, skinny, slender, slim, spare, svelte

Related Words clean-limbed, trim; sylphlike, willowy; angular, rawboned, scraggy, scrawny, sinewy, wiry; lank, lanky, rangy, reedy, spindling, spindly, stringy, twiggy, waspish, weedy; anorectic (also anoretic), anorexic, cadaverous, emaciated, gaunt, haggard, pinched, skeletal, wasted, wizened; meager (or meagre), puny, slight

Near Antonyms beefy, bulky, chunky, fleshy, heavy, heavyset, stocky, stout, thick, thickset, weighty; brawny, burly, husky; dumpy, pudgy, roly-poly, squat, stubby; paunchy, potbellied; flabby, soft; buxom, zaftig (also zoftig); fleshed-out, full, hippy, round

Antonyms chubby, corpulent, fat, gross, obese, overweight, plump, portly, rotund, tubby

2

producing inferior or only a small amount of vegetation <bony hills from which sheepherders eked out a meager existence>

Synonyms bony (also boney), dead, desolate, hardscrabble, impoverished, infertile, poor, stark, unfertile, unproductive, waste

Related Words bleak, inhospitable, lifeless; uncultivable, untillable; bankrupted, consumed, debilitated, depleted, diminished, drained, dried-up, enfeebled, exhausted, expended, lessened, reduced, spent, used up; arid, desert, droughty, dry, rainless, sere (also sear), thirsty, waterless; baked, dehydrated, parched, sunbaked

Near Antonyms arable, tillable; green, sylvan, verdant

Antonyms fertile, fruitful, lush, luxuriant, productive, rich

Variants of BONY

bony also boney