bone

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   One of the hard white parts that form the skeleton of a person or animal.

   She fell off her bike and broke a bone in her arm.

2. 2
   noun

   The hard material that the skeleton is made of.

   The soup is made by boiling meat and bone for hours.

3. 3
   verb

   To remove the bones from meat or fish.

   The chef boned the chicken before roasting it.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Bone is an Old English word. The phrase bone idle arose in the mid-19th century, suggesting idleness extending through to the bone; bonfire may once have meant a fire for burning bones, though the evidence for that explanation is weak.

From Middle English bon, from Old English bān (“bone, tusk; the bone of a limb”), from Proto-Germanic *bainą (“bone”), from *bainaz (“straight”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyh₂- (“to hit, strike, beat”). Cognate with Scots bane, been, bean, bein, bain (“bone”), North Frisian bian, Biin, biinj (“bone; leg”), 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 pi…

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