bone

1. 1

   A composite material consisting largely of calcium phosphate and collagen and making up the skeleton of most vertebrates.uncountable

   • 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 bry
2. 2

   Any of the components of an endoskeleton, made of this material.countable

   • No Trophee, Sword, nor Hatchment o're his bones.
3. 3

   A bone of a fish; a fishbone.countableuncountable

4. 4

   A bonefish.countableuncountable

   • 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. 5

   One of the rigid parts of a corset that forms its frame, the boning, originally made of whalebone.countableuncountable

6. 6

   One of the fragments of bone held between the fingers of the hand and rattled together to keep time to music.countableuncountable

7. 7

   Anything made of bone, such as a bobbin for weaving bone lace.countableuncountable

8. 8

   The framework of anything.countablefigurativelyuncountable

   • This year thus far I have travelled to eight of our laboratories talking about quality, telling the people who work in our company that quality is the muscle and bone of our company.
9. 9

   An off-white colour, like the typical colour of bone.countableuncountable

10. 10

    A dollar.UScountablein-plural

syn. os

1. 1

   Of an off-white colour, like the colour of bone.not-comparable

1. 1

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

   • 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.
   • 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.
2. 2

   To fertilize with bone.

   • 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. 3

   To put whalebone into.

   • Having my stays very fully boned and fitted with shoulder-straps.
4. 4

   To make level, using a particular procedure; to survey a level line.

   • boning rod
5. 5

   To have sexual intercourse (with).ambitransitiveslangusually

   • O Memmius, well and slowly did you bone me, supine, day by day, with the whole of that beam.
   • We’re bonin’ on the dark blocks / Wearin’ out the shocks, wettin’ up the dashboard clock
6. 6

   To perform “bone pointing”, a ritual that is intended to bring illness or even death to the victim.Australiadated

   • “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. 7

   To study.usually

   • bone up
8. 8

   To polish boots to a shiny finish.

   • […] the permanent boning (excessive polishing) of boots by recruits […]
9. 9

   To nag, especially for an unpaid debt.

   • 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!

1. 1

   Used before an adjective as an intensifiernot-comparable

   • GWF, well almost anyway, 40, bone-lonely, desperately needs a friend in Southern Maine.

1. 1

   To apprehend, steal.slangtransitive

   • But troll's old seat is much the same, And the bone he boned from its owner
   • Therefore she wants to take results that belong to other people: she wants to bone everybody else's loaf.

1. 1

   To sight along an object or set of objects to check whether they are level or in line.

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

1. 1

   Clipping of trombone.abbreviationalt-ofclipping