bone
pronunciation
How to pronounce bone in British English:
UK [bəʊn]
How to pronounce bone in American English:
US [boʊn]
-
- Noun:
- rigid connective tissue that makes up the skeleton of vertebrates
- the porous calcified substance from which bones are made
- a shade of white the color of bleached bones
-
- Verb:
- study intensively, as before an exam
- remove the bones from
-
- Adjective:
- consisting of or made up of bone
Word Origin
- bone
- bone: [OE] Somewhat unusually for a basic body-part term, bone is a strictly Germanic word: it has no relatives in other Indo-European languages. It comes from a presumed Germanic *bainam, which also produced for example German bein and Swedish ben. These both mean ‘leg’ as well as ‘bone’, suggesting that the original connotation of *bainam may have been ‘long bone’.
- bone (n.)
- Old English ban "bone, tusk," from Proto-Germanic *bainam (cognates: Old Frisian ben, Old Norse bein, Danish ben, German Bein). No cognates outside Germanic (the common PIE root is *os-; see osseous); the Norse, Dutch, and German cognates also mean "shank of the leg," and this is the main meaning in Modern German, but English never seems to have had this sense.
- bone (v.)
- especially in bone up "study," 1880s student slang, probably from "Bohn's Classical Library," a popular series in higher education published by German-born English publisher Henry George Bohn (1796-1884) as part of a broad series of "libraries" he issued from 1846, totaling 766 volumes, continued after 1864 by G. Bell & Sons.
Antonym
Example
- 1. Protecting your bone health is easier than you think .
- 2. Bone marrow is a sponge-like tissue inside the bones .
- 3. Ligaments bind bone to bone inside joint capsules .
- 4. Then there 's the issue of bone loss .
- 5. May I give him a bone ?