bare bones meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

bare bones

nounalso spelled bare-bones

Etymology By metaphor with the skeleton versus the whole body including the flesh.

The essential elements of something; the minimum viable set of elements; especially when they are described without going into detail.

He had only been taught the bare bones of the system, but carried on regardless.
The bare bones of a cookbook are its recipes, but as a genre it is so elastic and malleable that it can contain a range of other purposes and dimensions.1982 April 10, Michael Bronski, “We Are How We Cook”, in Gay Community News, page 7:

1 more example

Typically, this meant that the teams were turning around two sets a week, with a train rolling into the depot on a Sunday for what Hinze describes as a "big strip-out". This would pull the carriages back almost to the bare bones.2025 July 23, Richard Wilcock, “A new dawn for the Electrostars”, in RAIL, number 1040, page 27:

Related terms: bare-boned, bells and whistles, flesh out, skeleton, skeletonized

bare-bones

adj

Idiomatic Minimalist; lacking that which is not essential.

Meals on early space flights were bare-bones affairs; able to supply nutrition, but severely lacking in palatability.
Considering their civilization endured both the immense disaster of the Scourge and the brutal kett invasion, angara possess remarkably advanced technology. Their starships, while generally small and bare-bones functional, are more than capable of keeping pace with Andromeda Initiative vessels.2017, BioWare, Mass Effect: Andromeda (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Angara: Technology Codex entry:

Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences Idiomatic Describes a computer sold preassembled, but without certain essential components, such as a processor, memory, and hard drive.

Emil bought a bare-bones rig and a new CPU at the computer show, then popped in his old hard drive.

Synonyms: 36 terms
no-frills, skeleton, austere, bare, bare-bones, bargain, basic, cheap, default, discreet, economy, elemental, elementary, essential, foundational, fundamental, incomplex, light, modest, plain, pure, restrained, rudimentary, run-of-the-mill, simple, slimline, spartan, standard, stripped down, stripped, uncomplicated, unembellished, uninvolved, unmodified, unvarnished, vanilla
Antonyms: all singing, all dancing, deluxe, fully-loaded
Related terms: barebone, feature creep, kitchen-sinky, bells and whistles, skeleton crew, common
Hypernyms: lacking