marrowbone

From marrow +‎ bone.

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marrowbone (plural marrowbones)

1. A bone containing edible marrow.
   • 1922, E R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros‎, London: Jonathan Cape, page 21:

     And thy skull and thy marrow-bones will I have away to Carcë, to my palace, to be a token unto all the world that I have been the bane of an hundredth great champion by my wrastling, and thou not least among them that I have slain in that exercise.

2. (humorous, chiefly in the plural) The shins or knees, chiefly in references to kneeling.
   • 1751, Smollett, chapter 56, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle , volume II, London: Harrison and Co., , →OCLC:

     Upon this condescension, the culprit was called up stairs, and made acquainted with the mitigation of his fate; upon which he said, he would down on his marrow-bones to his own master, but would be damn'd before he would ask pardon of e'er a Frenchman in Christendom.

   • 1861, Eneas Sweetland Dallas, Once a Week, volume 4, page 246:

     So the news of the split between the old and the young one caused plenty of conversation, you may be sure; and will Mr. Robert go down on his marrowbones? and what has he done? was all the question.

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, , →OCLC:

     They would all to a man have gone down on their marrowbones to him.

• bone marrow, bonemarrow