bone

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:

bone

Wikipedia

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /bəʊn/
• (General American) enPR: bōn, IPA^(key): /boʊn/

• Audio (GA)

  (file)

• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /bəʉn/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /bɐʉn/
• Rhymes: -əʊn

Etymology 1

From Middle English bon, from Old English bān (“bone, tusk; the bone of a limb”), from Proto-Germanic *bainą (“bone”), from *bainaz (“straight”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyh₂- (“to hit, strike, beat”).

Cognate with Scots bane, been, bean, bein, bain (“bone”), North Frisian bien (“bone”), West Frisian bien (“bone”), Dutch been (“bone; leg”), German Low German Been, Bein (“bone”), German Bein (“leg”), German Gebein (“bones”), Swedish ben (“bone; leg”), Norwegian and Icelandic bein (“bone”), Breton benañ (“to cut, hew”), Latin perfinēs (“break through, break into pieces, shatter”), Avestan 𐬠𐬫𐬈𐬥𐬙𐬈 (byente, “they fight, hit”). Related also to Old Norse beinn (“straight, right, favourable, advantageous, convenient, friendly, fair, keen”) (whence Middle English bain, bayne, bayn, beyn (“direct, prompt”), Scots bein, bien (“in good condition, pleasant, well-to-do, cosy, well-stocked, pleasant, keen”)), Icelandic beinn (“straight, direct, hospitable”), Norwegian bein (“straight, direct, easy to deal with”). See bain, bein.

Alternative forms

• bane, byen (dialectal)

Noun

bone (countable and uncountable, plural bones)

1. (uncountable) A composite material consisting largely of calcium phosphate and collagen and making up the skeleton of most vertebrates.
   • a1420, The British Museum Additional MS, 12,056, “Wounds complicated by the Dislocation of a Bone”, in Robert von Fleischhacker, editor, Lanfranc's "Science of cirurgie."‎, London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co, translation of original by Lanfranc of Milan, published 1894, →ISBN, page 63:

     Ne take noon hede to brynge togidere þe parties of þe boon þat is to-broken or dislocate, til viij. daies ben goon in þe wyntir, & v. in þe somer; for þanne it schal make quytture, and be sikir from swellynge; & þanne brynge togidere þe brynkis eiþer þe disiuncture after þe techynge þat schal be seid in þe chapitle of algebra.

2. (countable) Any of the components of an endoskeleton, made of bone.
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 275, column 1:

     No Trophee, Sword, nor Hatchment o're his bones.

3. A bone of a fish; a fishbone.
4. A bonefish.
   • 2019, Scott Sadil, “Tres Bocas”, in California Fly Fisher:

     The reason I rarely fish for Mag Bay bones with a 5-weight or 6-weight is the number of fish that can turn light stuff inside out.

5. One of the rigid parts of a corset that forms its frame, the boning, originally made of whalebone.
6. One of the fragments of bone held between the fingers of the hand and rattled together to keep time to music.
7. Anything made of bone, such as a bobbin for weaving bone lace.
8. (figurative) The framework of anything.
9. An off-white colour, like the colour of bone.

   bone:  

10. (US, informal, in the plural) A dollar.
11. (American football, informal) The wishbone formation.
12. (slang) An erect penis; a boner.
    • 2003, “Let Me Watch”, in Vaudeville Villain, performed by Viktor Vaughn ft. Apani B. Fly:

      Speakin' on the phone, for hours on end / On the bone from just listenin', and then:

13. (slang, chiefly in the plural) A domino or dice.

    Let's head to the casino and roll them bones!

    • 1899 (please specify the page), Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, , →OCLC, part:

      The Accountant had brought out already a box of dominoes, and was toying architecturally with the bones.

14. (slang) A cannabis cigarette; a joint.
    • 2006, Sean Conway, Gillis Huckabee, page 140:

      In between sets I took her outside, sat against a fence near the dumpster, and smoked a bone with her.

15. (figurative) A reward.
    • 1979, Pink Floyd, Nobody Home:

      When I'm a good dog they sometimes throw me a bone in

Synonyms

• os (rare)
• (rigid parts of a corset): rib, stay
• (reward): doggy treat

Hypernyms

• skeleton

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

bone (not comparable)

1. Of an off-white colour, like the colour of bone.

Verb

bone (third-person singular simple present bones, present participle boning, simple past and past participle boned)

1. To prepare (meat, etc) by removing the bone or bones from.

   Synonyms: debone, unbone

   • 1949, Kenneth Lewis Roberts, I Wanted to Write‎, page 44:

     One of the fish stalls specialized in boning shad, and he who has never eaten a boned shad baked twenty minutes on a hot oak plank has been deprived of the most delicious morsel that the ocean yields.

   • 1977, Prosper Montagné, Charlotte Snyder Turgeon, The New Larousse Gastronomique‎, page 73:

     The ballottine is made of a piece of meat, fowl, game or fish which is boned, stuffed, and rolled into the shape of a bundle. The term ballottine should strictly apply only to meat, boned and rolled, but not stuffed.

   • 2009, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, A History of Food‎, page 379:

     Then it is boned; keeping the bone in during cooking improves the flavour and enriches the meat with calcium.

   • 2011, Aliza Green, Steve Legato, The Fishmonger's Apprentice‎, page 38:

     Other fish suited to boning through the back include small bluefish, Arctic char, steelhead salmon, salmon, small wild striped bass, hybrid striped bass, Whitefish, drum, trout, and sea trout.

2. To fertilize with bone.
   • 1859 July 9, The Economist‎, page 758:

     He cites an instance of land heavily boned 70 years ago as “still markedly luxuriant beyond any other grass land in the same district.”

3. To put whalebone into.
   • 1871, Figure-Training:

     Having my stays very fully boned and fitted with shoulder-straps.

4. (civil engineering) To make level, using a particular procedure; to survey a level line.

   boning rod

5. (vulgar, slang, usually of a man, transitive, intransitive) To have sexual intercourse (with).

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:copulate, Thesaurus:copulate with

   Related terms: boned, boner

   • 1993, “Back Seat (of My Jeep)”, in 14 Shots to the Dome, performed by LL Cool J:

     We're bonin' on the dark blocks / Wearin' out the shocks, wettin' up the dashboard clock

   • 1997, “It's All About the Benjamins”, in No Way Out, performed by Puff Daddy:

     Stash in the buildin wit this chick named Alona / From Daytona, when I was young I wants to bone her

   • 2006, Noire , Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 153:

     We were sitting in the student union between classes, and I had just been trying to decide which one of them I was gonna bone first that night.

   • 2006, “Sick of it all”, in Masta Ace (lyrics), Pariah:

     […] These cats stay rapping about cars they don't own / I am sick of rappers bragging about models they don't bone

   • 2007, Stacey Deddo, The Elimination Special, Part II: The Elimination (Drawn Together), season 3, episode 14, spoken by The Jew Producer (James Arnold Taylor), via Comedy Central:

     When we return we'll find out which one of our six remaining contestants' dreams will be totally ruined, like your mom's reputation after I bone her face.

   • 2007, Reno Mounties (Reno 911!), season 4, episode 11, spoken by Deputy Cherisha Kimball (Mary Birdsong), via Comedy Central:

     I swear on the good book that if you pull through, I will bone Travis Junior.

   • 2012, Gavin McInnes, The Death of Cool: From Teenage Rebellion to the Hangover of Adulthood, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 89:

     I'd been boning French chicks for a while now and was always shocked to see how many able-bodied young white women had no qualms about being on welfare.

6. (Australia, dated, in Aboriginal culture) To perform "bone pointing", a ritual that is intended to bring illness or even death to the victim.
   • 1962, Arthur Upfield, The Will of the Tribe, Collier Books, page 48:

     "You don't know!", Bony echoed. "You can tell me who boned me fifteen years ago on the other side of the world, and you can't tell me who killed the white-fella in the Crater".

7. (usually with "up") To study.

   bone up

   • 1896, Burt L. Standish, Frank Merriwell's Chums:

     "I know it. You do not study." "What's the use of boning all the time! I wasn't cut out for it."

8. To polish boots to a shiny finish.
   • c. 1980, F. van Zy, SADF National Service (1979-1980)‎, archived from the original on 22 June 2004:

     […] the permanent boning (excessive polishing) of boots by recruits […]

9. To nag, especially for an unpaid debt.
   • 1950, Asphalt Jungle:

     Dix Handley: Don't bone me!
     Cobby: Now look, I'm not boning you, Dix—
     Dix: Did I ever welsh?
     Cobby: Nobody said you did—
     Dix: You just boned me!

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• Appendix:Bones

Further reading

• Wikipedia list of bones in the human skeleton

Etymology 2

Unknown; probably related in some way to Etymology 1, above.

Verb

bone (third-person singular simple present bones, present participle boning, simple past and past participle boned)

1. (transitive, slang) To apprehend, steal.
   • 1839, Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby‎, page 127:

     “Did I?” said Squeers, “Well it was rather a startling thing for a stranger to come and recommend himself by saying that he knew all about you, and what your name was, and why you were living so quiet here, and what you had boned, and who you had boned it from.”

   • 1915, William Roscoe Thayer, The Life and Letters of John Hay:

     […] as long as you and I live I take it for granted that you will not suspect me of boning them. But to guard against casualties hereafter, I have asked Nicolay to write you a line saying that I have never had in my possession or custody any of the papers which you entrusted to him.

   • 1936, J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Root of the Boot”, in Songs for the Philologists:

     But troll's old seat is much the same,
     And the bone he boned from its owner

   • 1942, Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Canongate, published 2006, page 802:

     Therefore she wants to take results that belong to other people: she wants to bone everybody else's loaf.

Etymology 3

Borrowed from French bornoyer (“to look at with one eye, to sight”), from borgne (“one-eyed”).

Verb

bone (third-person singular simple present bones, present participle boning, simple past and past participle boned)

1. (carpentry, masonry, surveying) To sight along an object or set of objects to check whether they are level or in line.
   • 1846, W. M. Buchanan, A Technological Dictionary‎, page 151:

     Joiners, &c., bone their work with two straight edges.

Etymology 4

Clipping of trombone

Noun

bone (plural bones)

1. (slang) Clipping of trombone.

References

Anagrams

• Beno, Boen, ebon

Afrikaans

Noun

bone

1. plural of boon

Danish

Etymology 1

From Low German and Middle Low German bōnen, from Old Saxon *bōnian, from Proto-West Germanic *bōnijan (“to polish”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):

Verb

bone (imperative bon, infinitive at bone, present tense boner, past tense bonede, perfect tense har bonet)

1. to polish

Etymology 2

Derived from the noun bon (“receipt”), from French bon (“voucher, ticket”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):

Verb

bone (imperative bon, infinitive at bone, present tense boner, past tense bonede, perfect tense har bonet)

1. to enter (in the cash register)
2. to charge

Esperanto

Etymology

From bona (“good”) +‎ -e.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):
• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -one
• Hyphenation: bo‧ne

Adverb

bone

1. well

Interjection

bone

1. good, OK, all right, very well

   Synonyms: en ordo, enorde, okej

Hadza

Alternative forms

• bune

Etymology

Borrowed from Sukuma βũne (“four (class XIV)”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bone/

Adjective

bone m (masc. plural bunibii, fem. boneko, fem. plural bonebee)

1. four

Ido

Etymology

From Esperanto bone (“well”), bona (“good”) +‎ -e.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbone/

Adverb

bone

1. well
   • 2008, Margrit Kennedy, Pekunio sen interesti ed inflaciono, tr. by Alfred Neussner of Interest and Inflation Free Money, page 50:

     To pruvas maxim bone nia bonstando, se ica sumo distributesus nur proxime pro-porcionale.

     This would have served well as a proof of our prosperity if it were evenly distributed. (Original English, page 29)

Related terms

• bona

Italian

Adjective

bone

1. feminine plural of bono

Latin

Adjective

bone

1. vocative masculine singular of bonus

References

• “bone”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• bone in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “bone”, in Richard Stillwell et al., editor (1976), The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press

Lindu

Noun

bone

1. sand

Middle Dutch

Etymology

From Old Dutch *bōna, from Proto-West Germanic *baunu.

Noun

bône f

1. bean

Inflection

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Descendants

• Dutch: boon
  • Afrikaans: boon
    • → Xhosa: imbotyi (from the diminutive)
  • Berbice Creole Dutch: bono
  • Negerhollands: bontśi, boontje, boonschi (from the diminutive)
    • → Virgin Islands Creole: bontsi (archaic)
  • → Caribbean Javanese: bontyis (from the diminutive plural)
  • → Indonesian: buncis (from the diminutive plural)
    • → Petjo: bontjies, boontjies
  • → Javanese: buncis (from the diminutive plural)
  • → Papiamentu: bonchi, boontsje (from the diminutive)
  • → Sranan Tongo: bonki (from the diminutive)
    • → Caribbean Hindustani: bongki
• Limburgish: boean

Further reading

• “bone”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000
• Verwijs, E., Verdam, J. (1885–1929) “bone”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, →ISBN

Middle English

Etymology 1

Noun

bone

1. Alternative form of bane

Etymology 2

Noun

bone (plural bones)

1. Alternative form of bon

Etymology 3

Noun

bone

1. Alternative form of boon

Etymology 4

Adjective

bone

1. Alternative form of boon

Etymology 5

Adjective

bone

1. Alternative form of boun

Neapolitan

Adjective

bone f pl

1. feminine plural of buono

Northern Sami

Pronunciation

• (Kautokeino) IPA^(key): /ˈpone/

Verb

bone

1. inflection of botnit:
   1. present indicative connegative
   2. second-person singular imperative
   3. imperative connegative

Old French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbu.nə/

Adjective

bone

1. nominative feminine singular of bon
2. oblique feminine singular of bon

Turkish

Etymology

From French bonnet.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bo.ˈne/
• Hyphenation: bo‧ne

Noun

bone (definite accusative boneyi, plural boneler)

1. (kıyafetler) bathing cap, swim cap, swimming cap.

   Yüzücünün yarışta taktığı bone çıktı.

   The swimming cap that the swimmer wore during the race came off.

   (please add an English translation of this usage example)

Declension

Further reading

• bone on the Turkish Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^tr

Venetian

Adjective

bone

1. feminine plural of bon