What does skinned mean?
Skinned is an adjective and an inflected form of the verb skin. Its most direct meaning describes a person or body part whose skin has been removed, often as the result of injury, burning, or abrasion: his knees were skinned after the fall. In British English, it can also mean severely sunburnt, as in the phrase skinned by the sun. Figuratively, the word describes someone stripped of money, resources, or advantages, sometimes with the expression skinned alive for a particularly harsh financial loss. As a verb form, skinned is the past tense and past participle of skin, meaning to remove skin from something or to strip it of something valued. The word is related to skin, skinning, and skinless, and ultimately comes from Old English.
Having had the skin removed, stripped, or severely damaged; also, in British English, badly sunburnt.
"The frost-bitten man had skinned fingers and frostbitten toes."
The sunburnt sense is especially associated with British English.
The past tense and past participle of skin: to remove the skin from something, or figuratively to strip it of money or other resources.
"The butcher skinned the animal and prepared it for sale."
This form can function as both a past-tense verb and a past participle.
Skinned can describe both the aftermath of removing skin and the aftermath of a blistering day in the sun.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does skinned come from?
Skinned derives from skin, whose Old English ancestor was skinn, meaning the outer covering of the body. The verb skin developed the sense of removing an outer covering, while the adjective skinned came to mean having had that covering removed. The word is related to cutaneous, from Latin cutis, meaning skin, and to other English forms such as skinning and skinless.
Related word forms
How skinned is actually used
The adjective is somewhat literary or dramatic when referring to the removal of skin. The sunburnt sense is especially common in British English. The figurative sense is informal and often appears in phrases such as 'skinned alive'.
Easily confused with skinned
As a verb, 'skinned' means the past tense and past participle of 'skin'; as an adjective, it describes a person or thing whose skin has been removed, damaged, or stripped.