The skinny meaning is the true information about someone or something that is not known by most people. It is often used to ask for the inside information or the naked truth. The phrase may derive from the idea of being as thin as skin or being naked. For example, you can say “What’s the skinny on their supposed breakup?” to ask for the real story behind a couple’s separation. The word skinny is usually an adjective meaning extremely thin, but in this phrase it is used as a noun. The expression get the skinny is an American idiom that has been traced back to just before World War II and became more popular from the late 1970s to the present time.
