bones, n.¹ — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

bones n.¹

[ext. of SE use; dice were orig. made of bone]

1. dice; esp. in exhortation roll them bones!

c.1386		Chaucer Pardoner’s Tale line 651: By goddes precious herte, and by his nayles [...] Seven is my chaunce, and thyn is cink and treye; By goddes armes, if thou falsly pleye, This dagger shal thurgh-out thyn herte go – This fruyt cometh of the bicched bones two, Forswering, ire, falsnesse, homicyde.
c.1499		Skelton Bowge of Courte line 346: And on the borde he whyrld a payre of bones.
c.1550		R. Wever Lusty Juventus Eii: I wyll trill the bones while I haue one grote, And when there is no more inke in the pen, I will make shift as well as other men.
c.1589		‘Black Hambleton’ ‘To the Archbishop of York’ in May & Bryson Verse Libel 182: They [...] / Love good ale, cardes and boanes.
1599		H. Porter Two Angry Women of Abington A4: m. bar.: Right by the Lord, a plague vpon the bones. m. gou.: And a hot mischiefe on the curser too.
1608		Dekker Lanthorne and Candle-Light Ch. 3: They shuffle and cut on one side: the bones rattle on the other.
1633		S. Marmion Fine Companion V ii: I was at dice. I came the Caster with some of them I thinke, and I had like to haue made their bones rattle for it.
1693		Dryden Persius III 36: But then my Study was to Cog the Dice; And dext’rously to throw the lucky Sice: To shun Ames-Ace, that swept my stakes away; And watch the Box, for fear they shou’d convey False Bones, and put upon me in the Play.
1721		Penkethman’s Jests 87: A Footman, who had lost all his Money at Dice, – said, His Board-Wages was all gone to the Devil, with his Bones.
1772		Foote Nabob in Works (1799) II 301: When your chance is low, as tray, ace, or two deuces, the best method is to dribble out the bones from the box.
c.1790		‘Luke Caffrey’s Ghost’ in Chap Book Songs 3: His grinders rattled in his jaw-wags, like a pair of white-headed fortune-tellers in an elbow-shaker’s bone box.
1790		M.P. Andrews Better Late than Never 30: See, the lads are at it [i.e. dicing] already – the bones are in motion.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1821		W. Read Rouge et Noir 63: You may see thousands lost, and, as you chuse, you / Can play at Rouge et Noir or shake the bone.
1849		Thackeray Pendennis I 181: I saw you sit down to ecarté last week at Trumpington’s, and taking your turn with the bones after Ringwood’s supper.
1851		G. Borrow Lavengro I 63: A man with a white hat and a sparkling eye held up a box which contained something which rattled, and asked me to fling the bones.
1852		Yankee Notions Jan. 2/2: Ez. put the ‘bones’ in his pocket [...] but, somehow or other, out came the dice again.
1861		G.J. Whyte-Melville Good for Nothing (1890) 219: What with speculations failing, and Consols dropping all at once, not to mention a continual run of ill-luck with the bones, I saw no way out of it but to bolt.
1868		G.J. Whyte-Melville White Rose 206: A merry blue-eyed boy, fresh from Eton, who could do ‘thimble-rig,’ ‘prick the garter,’ ‘bones’ with his face blackened.
1880		Henley & Stevenson Deacon Brodie I tab.I vii: You always were a neat hand with the bones, Deakin.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 2: Bones - Dice. Crooked Bones - Loaded dice.
1891		F.W. Carew Autobiog. of a Gipsey 408: Groups of men were [...] engaged in playing cards, dominoes, or rattling the bones.
1891		Dead Bird (Sydney) 17 Jan. 1/1: ’E instructed the dandy Apollo / In the fine art of playing the bones.
1900		Flynt & Walton Powers That Prey 255: I tried gamblin’ for a bit, but I couldn’t win nothin’; a man that’s down on ’is luck shouldn’t touch the bones.
1908		Stell & Null Convict Verse 18: Seben come ’leben – roll ’long bones!
1910		Truth (Perth) 8 Oct. 8/8: Both them rooms Is rigged for gamblin’ / Little tables everywhere; / Cards & bones & such inventions / For the game, they all are there.
1917		Van Loan ‘Levelling with Elisha’ in Old Man Curry 32: He [...] flang ’em bones jus’ like he’s got ’em ejicated.
1921		Truth (Brisbane) 13 Nov. 9/3: One can imagine the heart-sick earnestness with which the ebony gamesters watch the roll of the bones.
1928		N.I. White Amer. Negro Folk-Songs 363: [reported from Auburn, Ala., 1915–1916] Roll dem bones, roll dem bones, roll ’em on the square, / Roll ’em on the sidewalk, de streets or any whar. / Roll ’em in de evenin’, roll ’em in de night, / Roll dem bones, when de cops are out of sight.
1933		W.R. Burnett Dark Hazard (1934) 42: Did you see how he handled them bones? Man! he kin make ’em do eve’thing but talk.
1946		S. Jackson An Indiscreet Guide to Soho 94: Should he prefer to ‘shoot the bones’ (play dice) his light-fingered friends can palm a loaded set.
1950		P. Hoskins No Hiding Place! 192/1: Shoot the Bones. Playing dice.
1956		‘Raymond Thorp’ Viper 90: Come on bones, roll me a seven.
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 83: Only a crazy man would cut long hours when he could bounce some bones across the table and know he was going to come out on top.
1965		C. Brown Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 158: I’d take some loaded craps down there, some bones [...] and beat the paddy boys out of all their money.
1972		D. Claerbaut Black Jargon in White America 58: bones n. dice.
2000		Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 bones Definition: a pair of die. Example: Rozelle and me was rollin’ bones and I took him for everything but the stank off his farts.

2. the human teeth.

1937–84

Partridge DSUE (1984) 114/2: C.19–20.

3. the fingers when clenched in a fist.

1822

Tom and Jerry; A Musical Extravaganza I v: See that young man a diver is. Hush or he’ll rattle out his bones upon your ivories.

4. a surgeon.

1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Jan. 17/4: The morning for the duel came, / Bones, Pistols, Cornet – all were ready, / But Tambourine; he hurried not, / Though sober quite, he wasn’t steady.
1887		Chambers’s Journal 8 Jan. 30: I have sent for the village bones, and if he can but patch me up, it may not yet be too late [F&H].

5. (US campus) a skeleton.

1900

E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 24: bones, n. A skeleton.

6. (US) a thin person.

1960, 1975

Wentworth & Flexner DAS.

7. the game of dominoes [pl. of bone n.¹ (2b)].

1978		N.Y. Times Mag 26 Mar. 22: Willie Nelson plays in a ‘bones’ (dominoe) tournament [HDAS].
1993		Ice Cube ‘It Was a Good Day’ 🎵 Then we played bones, and I’m yellin domino.

8. (UK gang) one who is dead, a corpse.

2018-20

T. Thorne (ed.) ‘Drill Slang Glossary’ at Forensic Linguistic Databank 🌐 Bones -dead.

9. (Polari) constr. with the, a boyfriend.

2019

P. Baker Fabulosa 289/2: (the) bones one’s boyfriend.

In compounds

bone-thrower (n.)

(US) a craps player.

1894

Wichita Daily Eagle (KS) 11 Aug. 6/5: ‘Liver Lip Jack’ [is] ‘King of the Bone Throwers’ [...] The bone throwers are the people who play ‘craps’.

In phrases

bones of St Hugh (n.)

see St Hugh’s bones n. (1)

devil’s bones (n.)

see under devil n.

roll the bones (v.) (also rattle..., shake…, trundle…)

1. (US) to play at dice; thus bone-roller a dice-player.

1567–70		G. Turbervile ‘To his Friend P.’ in Chalmers Eng. Poets (1810) II 602/2: To shake the bones and cog the craftie Dice.
1823		N.-Y. Eve. Post 18 Sept. 2/4: Peradventure they [naughty boys] have obtained a little money, in which case their holy-day amusement may consist in throwing the dice (by them familiarly called trundling the bones) or playing chuck farthing.
1838		Spirit of the Times (N.Y.) 17 Feb. 6/1: ‘Come, gentlemen,’ says he, ‘one more glass, and let us go and fight the tiger.’ Well, what do you suppose they meant by the Tiger? why it was a ‘Faro Bank’ on one side, and a ‘Roll the Bones, and fair play,’ on the other.
1847		Morn. Advertiser (London) 19 Nov. 3/7: Lord Maidstone was in full play, and half-pay credit; he rattled the bones.
1887		Lantern (N.O.) 12 Mar. 2: [He] comes all the way from the Third District up here to shake the bones.
1897		Ade Pink Marsh (1963) 157: I see Clay Walkeh an’ some mo’ boys rollin’ ’e bones.
1906		Chariton Courier (MO) 3 Aug. 1/3: Another trio of the motley mess of crap-shooters [...] the same gang of bone-rollers.
1916		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 70: The leading humorist of the camp was Bob Armstrong who would rather roll the bones than eat.
1917		Van Loan ‘Levelling with Elisha’ in Old Man Curry 208: I’m rollin’ dem bones.
1929		D.H. Clarke In the Reign of Rothstein 35: Fifteen men, who included Arnold Rothstein, Eddie Katz [...] and other prominent citizens [...] were rolling the bones.
1938		(ref. to late 18C) H. Asbury Sucker’s Progress 42: It is interesting to note that in England before the beginning of the nineteenth century dice were commonly known as ‘the bones’ and ‘the doctors,’ while casting them was ‘rolling the bones’.
1944		H.B. Hersey G.I. Laughs 208: Now Private Jones / He rolled the bones.
1956		Cecil McCulloch & The Border Boys ‘Pick ’Em Up An’ Shake ’Em Up’ 🎵 We’re gonna pick ’em up an’ shake ’em up / An let ’em roll, / All night long we’re gonna roll them bones.
1965		J. Thompson Texas by the Tail (1994) 138: He simulated a man shooting dice. ‘Like to roll the bones a little?’.
1970		Grateful Dead ‘Candy Man’ 🎵 Roll those laughing bones / Seven come eleven boys.
2001		N. Tosches Where Dead Voices Gather (ms.) 237: Rolling them bones: dice, the oldest of gambling devices, older than the Bible, found in tombs of ancient Egypt.
2010		R. Roeper Bet the House 199: Apparently Williams himself likes to roll the bones. ‘When I came here to play Michigan State [...] I went down and shot craps and lost’ .

2. (N.Z. prison) to gain one’s gang patch without undergoing the usual preliminary training [to qualify one must commit a murder, rape a child under 12 or woman over 50; this supposedly weeds out those who are not fully dedicated to gang life, as well as informers, undercover police, etc].

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 23/1: roll the bones as a gang recruit, to omit one's prospect training to immediately become a full patch member.

SE in slang uses

In phrases

have the bones of (v.)

(Irish/Cork) of people or places, to know intimately, to know inside out.

2017

L. McInerney Blood Miracles 60: He wants to stand on Patrick’s Bridge and roar at both north and south banks Don’t think I don’t have the bones of you!

jump (on) someone’s bones (v.)

1. usu. of a man, to have sexual intercourse.

c.1820		‘The Bold English Navvy’ in Bold (1979) 30: Sure, he’ll jump on your bones with his navvy boots on.
1955		in E. Cray Erotic Muse (1992) 78: Don’t let a navvy come into your bed / For their hearts do run light and their minds do run young / Sure they’ll jump on your bones with their navvy boots on.
1989		P. Munro Sl. U.
1990		(con. c.1970) G. Hasford Phantom Blooper 181: Every guy in the ward with legs wants to jump her bones and every guy with hands tries to cop a feel.
1994		D. Lehane A Drink Before the War 14: Makes you [i.e. a woman] want to jump my bones on the spot, doesn’t it?
2000		S. Maloney Big Ask 235: A girl likes to be romanced. Not have her bones jumped when she’s half-tanked.
2004		C. Hiaasen Skinny Dip 172: I jumped your bones just because I was furious at Chaz.
2010		R. Stocker Virgin Blood 267: After a real man’s jumped her bones, she won’t want nothing to do with you.
2017		A. Parks Bloody January 210: ‘[M]aybe you just want to jump my bones?’.
2018		‘Aidan Truhen’ Price You Pay 157: [S]he also gets to jump his bones and make a sex tape and that is what they do.
2019		D. Winslow Border [ebook] ‘I just want to get you home and jump your bones right now’.
2024		C. Stella Joey Piss Pot 91: [A] 23-year-old Chinese woman had attempted to jump his bones.

2. to attack.

1989

P. Munro Sl. U.

bones n.1

In compounds

In phrases

SE in slang uses

In phrases

bones n.¹