Breastbone

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The central narrow bone in the front of the chest, connecting the collarbone and the top ribs.

    "He lapped out of his hand, then sat up in the sunlight, crossing his shins in front of him, and after a time let his woolly head fall on his breastbone."

  2. 2
    the flat bone that articulates with the clavicles and the first seven pairs of ribs wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
sternumsternumbone

Example

More examples

"He lapped out of his hand, then sat up in the sunlight, crossing his shins in front of him, and after a time let his woolly head fall on his breastbone."

Etymology

From Middle English brust-bon, brestbon, from Old English brēostbān (“breastbone”), equivalent to breast + bone.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.