• (RP) IPA: /bəʊn/
• (America) enPR: bōn, IPA: /boʊn/
• (Australia) IPA: /bəʉn/
• (New Zealand) IPA: /bɐʉn/

From Middle English bon, from Old English bān, from Proto-Germanic *bainą, from *bainaz, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyh₂-.

Cognate with Scots bane, been, bean, bein, bain, Northern Frisian bien, Western Frisian bien, Dutch been, nds-de Been, Bein, German Bein, German Gebein, Swedish ben, Norwegian - and Icelandic bein, Breton benañ, Latin perfinēs, Avestan 𐬠𐬫𐬈𐬥𐬙𐬈. Related also to Old Norse beinn (whence Middle English bain, bayne, bayn, beyn, Scots bein, bien), Icelandic beinn, Norwegian bein. See bain, bein.

bone

1. (uncountable) A composite material consisting largely of calcium phosphate and collagen and making up the skeleton of most vertebrates.
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[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act IV, scene v], page 275 ↗, column 1:

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

3. A bone of a fish; a fishbone.
4. A bonefish.
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 One of the rigid parts of a corset that forms its frame, the boning, originally made of whalebone.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.

    

10. (US, informal, in the plural) A dollar.
11. (American football, informal) The wishbone formation.
12. (slang) An erect penis; a boner.
13. (slang, mostly, in the plural) A domino or die.

    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

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

see bone/translations

bone (not comparable)

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

bone (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

   Coordinate terms: gut, skin

2. To fertilize with bone.
3. To put whalebone into.
4. (civil engineering) To make level, using a particular procedure; to survey a level line.

   boning rod

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

   Synonyms: Thesaurus:copulate, Thesaurus:copulate with

   Related terms: boned, boner#Noun

   • 2006, Noire [pseudonym], 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.

6. (Australia, dated, in Aboriginal culture) To perform “bone pointing”, a ritual that is intended to bring illness or even death to the victim.
7. (usually with "up") To study.

   bone up

8. To polish boots to a shiny finish.
9. To nag, especially for an unpaid debt.

• French: désosser
• German: entbeinen, ausbeinen
• Italian: disossare
• Portuguese: desossar
• Russian: снимать мясо с кость
• Spanish: deshuesar (meat), quitar las espinas (fish)

• French: fourrer, emmancher, tirer sa crampe, forniquer, s’envoyer en l’air
• German: ficken, bumsen, vögeln, poppen, nageln
• Italian: fottere, scopare, chiavare
• Portuguese: transar, foder, comer
• Spanish: joder con, (Spain) follar con, (Mexico) coger con, culear (Chile), tirarse a (Spain)

• French: potasser
• Spanish: (Mexico) quemarse las pestañas

bone (bones, present participle boning; simple past and past participle boned)

1. (transitive, slang) To apprehend, steal.

Borrowed from French bornoyer, from borgne ("one-eyed").

bone (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.

bone (plural bones)

1. (slang) Clipping of trombone

1. Surname.
2. An unincorporated community in Bonneville County, Idaho, named after Orion Jost Bone.