Idiom
skeleton crew
Meaning
A crew consisting of the minimum number of personnel needed to maintain and operate the basic functions of something, such as a business, a factory, or a ship.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“The hotel runs with a skeleton crew during the quiet winter months.”
“A skeleton crew manages the store while the rest of us attend the meeting.”
“Because of the holiday, the office is operating with a skeleton crew until next week.”
“The hospital kept a skeleton crew in the billing department over the weekend so they could focus all their resources on the emergency room.”
“The factory maintained only a skeleton crew throughout the strike to ensure that the essential machinery remained operational and safe.”
Examples
simple
“The hotel runs with a skeleton crew during the quiet winter months.”
“A skeleton crew manages the store while the rest of us attend the meeting.”
contextual
“Because of the holiday, the office is operating with a skeleton crew until next week.”
“The hospital kept a skeleton crew in the billing department over the weekend so they could focus all their resources on the emergency room.”
complex
“The factory maintained only a skeleton crew throughout the strike to ensure that the essential machinery remained operational and safe.”
Origin
From the 18th-century military sense of a skeleton as a regiment reduced to a very small number of soldiers, far short of its established strength. The term evolved into an attributive use denoting the bare essentials or the absolute minimum required for operation. Metaphorically, a skeleton crew is one that has been stripped of its substance until it consists of the bare bones rather than an adequately fleshed-out body of personnel.
Key words
Related idioms
- Updated