scrannel adj.

"thin, slight, slender, eager," 1630s; any modern use traces to Milton ("Lycidas," 124), who may have invented it out of dialectal scranny, a variant of scrawny. Or it might have been an existing word from a Scandinavian source akin to Norwegian skran "rubbish." Also compare English dialectal and Scottish skran "scraps, broken victuals; refuse," in military slang "food," which is of obscure origin, hence out on the scran "begging."