bony

This term often carries a clinical or stark quality, evoking a sense of hardness and rigidity. When describing a person, it typically suggests a lack of flesh or fat, often implying a fragile or gaunt appearance rather than a muscular one. In a culinary or biological sense, it describes something cluttered with small bones, such as a piece of fish, which shifts the connotation from a physical description of a body to a frustrating or hazardous characteristic of food.