cut to the bone

idiom

: reduced to the lowest possible amount

The company's expenses had been cut to the bone.

Examples of cut to the bone in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

But a newspaper can’t play that role when its staff has been cut to the bone. —Curtis Bunn, NBC News, 24 Jan. 2024

But Louisiana has one of the lowest average incomes in the nation and so the rising costs there are quicker to cut to the bone. —Leslie Kaufman, Anchorage Daily News, 17 Sep. 2023

The movie’s two hours were barely enough to tell the story; to tell it in about two-and-a-half, while leaving room for those 17 new songs, everything else has been cut to the bone, with no room for subtlety, let alone expressivity. —Jesse Green, New York Times, 3 Aug. 2023

That helped many governments award temporary pay increases to retain key personnel, and hire others into departments that had been cut to the bone, such as public health. —Lydia Depillis, New York Times, 27 July 2023

Newsrooms cut to the bone at places like the Denver Post and the San Jose Mercury News can no longer provide robust news coverage to their communities, and there’s precious little strategic thinking about how to make the papers sustainable into the future. —Washington Post, 17 Apr. 2021

According to the affidavit, the victim was treated for a 2-inch cut to the bone and another 1-inch cut on his right arm, a torn earlobe, a cut to the back of his head and puncture wounds on his nose, left arm and both feet. —Isabella Volmert, Dallas News, 10 Mar. 2023

Then cut to the bone everything else that isn’t important. —Kara Baskin, BostonGlobe.com, 13 Jan. 2023

The newsroom staff, already significantly smaller than it once was 15 years ago, would no doubt be cut to the bone, as has happened at virtually every paper across the country that this hedge fund has devoured. —Margaret Sullivan, Washington Post, 20 May 2022