Refine this word faster
Hone
Definitions
- 1 Synonym of alas Used to express sorrow, or grief
"Oh, hone! oh, hone! miserable wretch that I am! Do ye mak confession for me, Sir, and I'll say 't after you, as weel as I dow. Oh, hone! oh, hone!"
- 1 A surname.
- 1 A sharpening stone composed of extra-fine grit used for removing the burr or curl from the blade of a razor or some other edge tool.
- 2 A kind of swelling in the cheek.
- 3 a whetstone made of fine gritstone; used for sharpening razors wordnet
- 4 A machine tool used in the manufacture of precision bores.
- 5 a tool consisting of a number of fine abrasive slips held in a machine head, rotated and reciprocated to impart a smooth finish to cylinder bores, etc. wordnet
- 1 To sharpen with a hone; to whet. transitive
- 2 To grumble. Southern-US, UK, US, dialectal, intransitive
"Such tunges ſhuld be torne out by the harde rootes,"
- 3 make perfect or complete wordnet
- 4 To use a hone to produce a precision bore. transitive
- 5 To pine, lament, or long. Southern-US, UK, US, dialectal
"He lies pitying himself, honing and moaning to himself"
Show 3 more definitions
- 6 sharpen with a hone wordnet
- 7 To refine (a skill especially) by learning. transitive
"He also honed the procedure known as cut and fill - whereby the spoil from railway cuttings was used to build up embankments."
- 8 To make more acute, intense, or effective.
Etymology
From Middle English hon (“whetstone”), from Old English hān, from Proto-Germanic *hainō (compare Dutch heen, Norwegian hein), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱeh₃i- (“to sharpen”) (compare Ancient Greek κῶνος (kônos, “cone”), Persian سان (sân, “whetstone”)).
From Middle English hon (“whetstone”), from Old English hān, from Proto-Germanic *hainō (compare Dutch heen, Norwegian hein), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱeh₃i- (“to sharpen”) (compare Ancient Greek κῶνος (kônos, “cone”), Persian سان (sân, “whetstone”)).
Cognate with Icelandic hnúður. Distantly related to knot.
French hogner (“to grumble”), which could be a cross of honnir (“to disgrace, shame”) and grogner (“to grunt”).
See also for "hone"
Next best steps
Mini challenge
Unscramble this word: hone