A severe weight loss and wasting of the body because of malnutrition, starvation, cancer, tuberculosis, parasites, or some other kind of severe illness: The emaciation of the survivors of the ship that sank into the ocean was very severe and most of them could not walk and so they had to be carried off their boat into the rescue ship.

The forest ranger explained that the emaciation of the deer in the area was caused by the extremely cold winter.