骨瘦如柴 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• as thin as a match; emaciated

Character by character

• 骨gǔbone; skeleton; frame, framework
• 瘦shòuthin, lean, emaciated; meager
• 如rúas, as if, like, such as, supposing
• 柴cháifirewood, faggots, fuel; surname

Idioms sharing a character

• 伤筋动骨 shāng jīn dòng gǔ
• 伤筋断骨 shāng jīn duàn gǔ
• 冰肌玉骨 bīng jī yù gǔ
• 刻骨相思 kè gǔ xiāng sī
• 刻骨铭心 kè gǔ míng xīn
• 哀毁骨立 āi huǐ gǔ lì
• 冢中枯骨 zhǒng zhōng kū gǔ
• 如蛆附骨 rú qū fù gǔ
• 寒风刺骨 hán fēng cì gǔ
• 恨之入骨 hèn zhī rù gǔ

Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.