US /ˈboʊnɚ/ UK /ˈbəʊnə/
noun

Meanings

  1. 1
    noun

    (informal) a foolish and embarrassing mistake

    He pulled a real boner by sending the email to the wrong client.

Thesaurus

Synonyms
1 noun · (informal) a foolish and... blundermistakegaffeerrorsliphowlerfaux pas
Word family
Related forms boneheadbone

Etymology

American slang for a blunder, early 20th century, probably from bonehead (a stupid person) plus -er, or a play on bone in the sense of a comedy mistake. Ultimately from bone, Old English bān.

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Topics

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