Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a very thin or emaciated person or animal [bone n.¹ (1b)].

1905

J.W. Carr ‘Words from Northwest Arkansas’ in DN III:i 70: boneyard, n. An emaciated horse. ‘That old boneyard ought to be killed.’.

2. a cemetery [SE bone].

1867		G.W. Harris Sut Lovingood’s Yarns 211: They went tu start tu the bone-yard, but durn me ef he staid thar hissef till funeral time.
1872		‘Mark Twain’ Innocents at Home 334: Some roughs jumped the Catholic bone-yard.
1881		Bulletin (Sydney) 12 Feb. 9/1: Alfred Allen poetically observes, with all the enthusiasm of a man who has just sat on a ‘flying horse,’ that a poet must write or pine away to the boneyard, and the swan must sing before it dies.
1890		Bulletin (Sydney) 2 Aug. 15/4: John was following his avocation six feet below the surface of the old established bone-yard in question, when the calm serenity of his daily toil was disturbed by a shower of bricks.
1894		Civil & Milit. Gaz. (Lahore) 18 Oct. 4/3: Owsomever it’s better’n given’ / The boneyard another recruit.
1903		A.H. Lewis Boss 205: It’s all off an’ nothin’ for it but the bone-yard!
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 9 Sept. 4/8: There is room at Karrakatta / In the boneyard, long and wide.
1916		R. Service ‘Bill’s Grave’ in Rhymes of a Red Cross Man 84: I makes me way to the boneyard.
1923		E. O’Neill Hairy Ape Act V: Yuh look like stiffs laid out for de boneyard!
1926		L. Esson Bride of Gospel Place 84: Lily: I seem to be getting ready for the boneyard.
1927		The Arkansas Travellers [title] Boneyard Shuffle.
1935		Z.N. Hurston Mules and Men (1995) 169: He walked into a boneyard with skull-heads.
1942		P. Wylie Generation of Vipers 255: Without refinement, dignity, or a sense of itself either as an entity or a necessary expression of other than America’s worst, it [i.e. Washington] is a painted boneyard.
1955		D. Niland Shiralee 173: You don’t know what a boneyard is [...] It’s where they put people when they get dead.
1960		(con. 1950-1960) R.A. Freeman Dict. Inmate Sl. (Walla Walla, WA) 15: Boneyard – a cemetery.
1961		‘Frank Richards’ Billy Bunter at Butlins 168: I know you’ve got it about you, young Fat Jack of the Boneyard.
1976		P. Theroux Family Arsenal 195: I hate this boneyard.
1988		J. Healy Grass Arena (1990) 87: ‘Hello, Johnny [...] come on let’s get a bottle!’ We soon got one and went into the boneyard to drink it.
1998		J. O’Connor Salesman 367: And this one year we’re up in the boneyard and the mother is saying the prayers.
2000		C. Cook Robbers (2001) 296: How’s retirement? Better’n the alternative. The boneyard, I mean.
2019		M. Herron Joe Country [ebook] [F]inding grim humour in the surroundings, and not only because it was a boneyard.

3. attrib. use of sense 2, pertaining to death or a funeral.

1984		Grey & Benvenuti Once Upon a Time in America [film script] Well, look who’s here – Fat Moe’s boneyard boys!
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 8: It’s like a funeral we’re gaun tae! Mind you oan the bus it’s mair like a fitba match than [a] boneyard procession.

4. (US tramp) a hospital, esp. in the context of a post-mortem examination [SE bone].

1930		‘Dean Stiff’ Milk and Honey Route 200: Boneyard – [...] Also refers to a hospital, or medical college where they practice on the bodies of departed hobos.
1960		(con. 1950-1960) R.A. Freeman Dict. Inmate Sl. (Walla Walla, WA) 15: Boneyard - a hospital or medical college where cadavers are used for study.

5. (US prison) the family or conjugal visiting area [bone v.² (1)].

2000

Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Boneyard: Family (conjugal) visiting area.