bone

1. 1.

   study intensively, as before an exam

   “I had to bone up on my Latin verbs before the final exam”

   Synonymscramgrind awaydrumbone upswotget upmug upswot up

   Broaderstudy
2. 2.

   remove the bones from

   “bone the turkey before roasting it”

   Synonymsdebone

   Broaderremove

   animal

1. 1.

   consisting of or made up of bone

   “a bony substance”

   “the bony framework of the body”

   Similarbony

Other forms of bone

plural

bones·

past tense

boned·

present participle

boning·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about bone

What does bone mean?

bone means "rigid connective tissue that makes up the skeleton of vertebrates". That is the primary sense; the word has 6 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in bone?

bone has 1 syllable: bone. In IPA it is /ˈboʊn/.

What is another word for bone?

Close synonyms include os, osseous tissue, ivory, pearl, off-white. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is bone a common word?

bone is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with bone?

9 words rhyme with bone. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.