Whirl-bone

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The patella, rotula, or kneecap. archaic
  2. 2
    The head of the femur. archaic

Etymology

From Middle English whirlebon, whyrlebone, whorlbane (“hip or hip joint; the thighbone, femur; the rounded head of the femur; the kneecap, patella; a vertebra; ankle”), perhaps an alteration of Old English hweorfbān (“a joint, kneecap, vertebra”), equivalent to whirl + bone. Cognate with Scots whorlebone, whorle-bane (“hip bone, joint, vertebra”), German Wirbelbein (“vertebra”).

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