▪ I. bony, a.
(ˈbəʊnɪ)
[f. bone n. + -y1.]
1. Of, pertaining to, of the nature of bone or bones; consisting or made of bones.
| a 1535 More Wks. (1557) 77 Y⊇ lothely figure of our dead bony bodies biten away y⊇ flesh. 1607 Topsell Four-f. Beasts 91 A certain bony substance. 1804 Abernethy Surg. Observ. 103 Bony matter was deposited. 1842 Prichard Nat. Hist. Man 116 The bony structure of the head. |
2. a. Abounding in bones; having large or prominent bones; big-boned.
| 1598 Sylvester Du Bartas (1621) 227 A lean, bare, bonny face [of a horse]. 1726 Thomson Winter 394 Bony, and gaunt, and grim. 1836 Dickens Pickw. v, A tall bony woman—straight all the way down. Mod. Neck of mutton is a very bony joint. |
b. Of coal: containing a considerable amount of slate or shale. U.S.
| 1857 Harper's Mag. Sept. 463/1 Much of the slate and ‘bony coal’ that occurs in the vein is separated. |
3. Comb., as bony-skeletoned; also bony-fish U.S., the menhaden or moss-bunker (Brevoortia tyrannus); bony-hoof (see quot.); bony-pike, a ganoid fish inhabiting rivers and lakes in America.
| 1768 Croker, etc. Dict. Arts & Sc. II, Bony Hoof is a round bony swelling, growing on the very top of a horse's hoof, which is always caused by some blow or bruise. 1815 Trans. Lit. & Philos. Soc. N.Y. I. 453 Bony-fish, Hard-heads, or Marsbankers. 1848 Carpenter Zool. §572 The Lepidosteus or Bony Pike..has many of the characters of the Pike, with the structure of the head of the Herring. 1871 Hartwig Subterr. W. ii. 13 Any bony-skeletoned fish of our days. 1871 Game Laws N.Y. in Fur, Fin & Feather (1872) 21 Bony fish, or moss bunkers..are exempted from the operation of this section. 1884 L. F. Allen New Amer. Farm Bk. 80 The moss-bonker, or bony-fish [etc.]..are caught in seines, and sold to the farmers by the wagon load. |
▪ II. bony, v. nonce-wd.
[f. prec.]
trans. To make bony; to harden.
| 1684 Gt. Frost p. xxix, [Thames says] Father Frost and Sister Snow have bonyed my borders. |
▪ III. bony, n. U.S. Mining.
(ˈbəʊnɪ)
[f. the adj.]
= bone n. 13.
| 1874 Raymond Statist. Mines & Mining 39 It [sc. the coal] is interstratified with sand-rock and shale. In some of the mines the roof consists of a mixture of the two, called by the men ‘bony’. Ibid. 41 The Black Diamond vein has for roof and floor shale, slate, and ‘bony’. |
▪ IV. bony
var. bonny, and bunny, Obs., a swelling.