Skeleton

How to spell skeleton

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce skeleton

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does skeleton mean?

1. nounThe internal framework of bones that supports the body of a human or animal.
2. adjectiveReduced to the smallest number or barest essentials needed to function.

Skeleton in a sentence

• noun

  The museum displayed the complete skeleton of a dinosaur.

• adjective

  Over the holiday the office ran on a skeleton staff of three people.

• noun

  Medical students learn the name of every bone in the human skeleton.

• adjective

  The night shift kept only a skeleton crew on duty.

Where does skeleton come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the Greek skeleton, short for skeleton soma, which literally meant 'dried-up body'. It is the neuter form of the adjective skeletos, 'dried up' or 'withered', built on the verb skellein, 'to dry up' or 'to parch'. The ancient idea was of a body desiccated to its bare frame, like a mummy reduced to bone. The term passed through scientific Latin and entered English around the late 1500s, used by early anatomists for the bony framework that remains when the soft flesh is gone. Knowing that the middle is the Greek skelet- root, with the unstressed vowels spelled e-o, helps fix the spelling: it is skel-e-ton, not skel-i-tin.

How the word is built

• skelet- (from Greek skeletos: dried up)
• -on (noun suffix)