emaciate

Imagine a strong person or animal, healthy and full of energy. Now picture weeks or months of serious illness, hunger, or neglect. Little by little, the body loses fat and muscle, the face grows hollow, and the whole body begins to look painfully thin. That is the idea behind emaciate.

The word is used when someone becomes abnormally thin and weak, often because they have not had enough food or because disease has worn the body down. It is stronger than words like "thin" or "skinny." It suggests that the body has wasted away and that the condition is serious. You might read about famine victims emaciated by hunger, sick patients who became emaciated during a long illness, or neglected animals found in an emaciated state.

The word is mainly used for physical condition, especially in medical, historical, or descriptive writing. It often appears as emaciated to describe how a person or animal looks. So when you hear emaciate, think not of ordinary weight loss, but of a painful, unhealthy wasting away caused by hardship, sickness, or starvation.