How to Use scrawny in a Sentence

scrawny

adjective
  • The only plants in their yard were a couple of scrawny bushes.
  • Some shacks pushed scrawny birds, others served brawny brutes.
    — Aimee Levitt, Chicago Reader, 8 Feb. 2018
  • Children kick balls around, and a few scrawny dogs loll in the shade.
    — Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker, 4 Nov. 2019
  • The chickens prove tough and scrawny and rather gruesome to kill.
    — Kanishk Tharoor, The Atlantic, 10 June 2018
  • If the cart has no chance, the scrawny teenager driving has less.
    — Frank Fellone, Arkansas Online, 3 Apr. 2021
  • My dad ate one of those scrawny blue tomatoes, and then stopped moving.
    — Dennard Dayle, The New Yorker, 15 Dec. 2022
  • The curtain clung to his scrawny legs, itty‑bitty, bulging chicken legs.
    — Jonas Eika, The New Yorker, 12 Apr. 2021
  • All along the road, trees raised their scrawny hands, white-knuckled against the brittle sky.
    — Literary Hub, 14 Apr. 2026
  • At baseball practice, a scrawny kid with a vest and a gun stood sentinel.
    — Rachel Monroe, The New Yorker, 26 Aug. 2022
  • Two healthy but scrawny plants have produced one growing pepper.
    — Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 25 June 2018
  • Mann plays Matt, a shy and scrawny kid who wears a patch over an empty eye socket.
    — John Defore, The Hollywood Reporter, 4 Aug. 2017
  • The fighter, a scrawny guy whose swagger looks put-on, hides his face in a monkey mask.
    — Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter, 12 Mar. 2024
  • This scrawny, 135-pound novice wanted to try a brutish contact sport?
    — Sam Cohn, Baltimore Sun, 12 Jan. 2024
  • The twins grew and grew, turning from scrawny baby birds into soft little piglets.
    — Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, 10 Mar. 2021
  • Every bite sent delicious bolts of grease sizzling around my scrawny body.
    — Tim Neville, Outside Online, 21 July 2022
  • At 16, Sam is tall for his age and his scrawny frame has about 50 pounds on me.
    — Sarah Evans, Longreads, 10 Aug. 2020
  • Panas then returned to the estate as a scrawny one-eyed chicken, bald and vicious.
    — Rachel Polonsky, The New York Review of Books, 11 May 2021
  • Tailgating is no longer the home of cold, waxy pizza and scrawny wings swimming in cold grease.
    — The Editors, Field & Stream, 20 Nov. 2019
  • And there’s almost no one in town who wouldn’t take that offering, except this scrawny dude.
    — Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 27 Mar. 2025
  • Ours arrived with little metal rings around their scrawny ankles.
    — Steve King, Condé Nast Traveler, 1 Dec. 2020
  • The casting notices are for a mother, an old woman, a scrawny old man and a 9-year-old girl.
    — Brayden Garcia, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 10 Dec. 2025
  • Many fans saw a scrawny 19-year-old who had been dropped as No 1 by a smaller club in the same league.
    — Jordan Campbell, New York Times, 9 Aug. 2025
  • Then a scrawny animal crawled out from under the West Side house into the yard.
    — Vincent T. Davis, ExpressNews.com, 21 Oct. 2019
  • But that seemed a long shot for a scrawny youngster who grew up shining shoes in the Bauru railway station.
    — Frank Dell'apa, BostonGlobe.com, 29 Dec. 2022
  • The woman’s husband, a scrawny man in a shabby work uniform, smelling of sewage, drooped behind the gurney.
    — Literary Hub, 23 Oct. 2025
  • Outweighed by more than 30 pounds, the scrawny, gritty Harrelson got the worst of it.
    — Staff and Wire Reports, The Mercury News, 12 Jan. 2024
  • Sometimes, the angle is shot from the floor up, to make this somewhat petite and scrawny girl appear more menacing.
    — Andy Meek, BGR, 19 Oct. 2021
  • The picture-book pup who grew from scrawny to supersize because of a little girl's love is the big star of this family film.
    — Jim Kiest, San Antonio Express-News, 9 Nov. 2021
  • Worried his scrawny frame would be a disadvantage in jail, the 25-year-old began hitting the gym.
    — Washington Post, 19 May 2021
  • As the movie explains to us, Brad used to be a little scrawny kid, but over the last five years turned into a big jock (and also a big jerk).
    — Rachel Paige, refinery29.com, 5 July 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'scrawny.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: