Green’s Dictionary of Slang

bonehead n.1

[SE bone + -head sfx (1); the image is of the hardness of bone; Moore, Lexicon of Cadet Language (1993), suggests an alternative link to bone n.1 (1a) on pattern of dickhead n.]

1. (orig. US) a fool, a dullard, an idiot; thus as a term of address.

[US]Philadelphia Inquirer (PA) 9 Mar. 10/5: Schreck has a weakness for calling every [one[ ‘Bonehead’ and ‘Fathead’ and the fellows get back by calling him ‘Schreckstein’.
[US]Sun (NY) 18 Oct. 11/2: Only a bonehead ought to expect a mess o’ deep sea coal heavers to play ball.
[US]J. London Valley of the Moon (1914) 154: ‘You’re a bonehead,’ Bert sneered.
[US]G. Bronson-Howard God’s Man 28: That father of mine’s just the craziest old bonehead in the world.
[US]St Louis Post-Despatch 16 Jan. 25/2: I’ve got a new monnicker for you. I’m going to call you Bonehead Sweeney.
[US]C. McKay Banjo 221: You big bonehead.
[Aus]X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 349: Heard you callin’ on the boneheads to rise and fight for their rights.
[US]Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 11 Mar. 11/1: Please [...] don’t let the prejudiced bone-heads get away with it.
[UK]G. Fairlie Capt. Bulldog Drummond 212: Surely this bonehead would understand that argument?
[UK]A. Buckeridge Jennings Goes To School 180: Of all the muddle-headed bone-heads.
[US]P. Rabe Benny Muscles In (2004) 277: You can use both of them [i.e. fingers], bonehead.
[US](con. 1940s) G. Mandel Wax Boom 304: I’m nobody’s bonehead.
[UK]S. Berkoff East in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 75: Of course I’m not ninety-six you stupid bonehead.
[UK]T. Paulin ‘Waftage: An Irregular Ode’ in Fivemiletown 7: Wiser – / aye, I used to think wiser – / than us boneheads here.
[US]S. Morgan Homeboy 281: Those boneheads interpreted a mutual devotion to fitness as a license to pose [...] any anatomical question.
[UK]N. Barlay Curvy Lovebox 51: Look a’ them muggy boneheads.
[Aus]R.G. Barrett Mud Crab Boogie (2013) [ebook] ‘Where does the agency find these boneheads?’.
[UK]Indep. Rev. 24 Feb. 1: In the old days a tramp, a bonehead and a ponce like my wouldn’t have made it down Kirkgate without having our heads kicked in.
[SA]IOL News (SA) 23 July 🌐 The term ‘bonehead’ did not refer to the race of the rugby hero but to his alleged stupidity.
[US]N.Y. Rev. of Books 27 Sept. 8/4: And there were the same boneheads among them.
[SA]Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) 24 Feb. 🌐 Portraying [George W.] Bush as a bonehead. Piece of cake. No one is offended.
[UK]Guardian CiF 14 Dec. 🌐 Is a democracy sausage what comes back to FU when a majority of boneheads vote in a wingnut LNP.
[Aus]D. Whish-Wilson Old Scores [ebook] ‘Carter’s just a bonehead’.
[US]T. Robinson Rough Trade [ebook] ‘I didn’t kill Byron [...] You two boneheads managed to do that’.
[Aus]D. Whish-Wilson Shore Leave 164: ‘Only reason you’re still alive is because you got some worth to those boneheads’.
[UK]J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 556: Inigo was always scornful about the idea - bonehead’s sentimentality, he called it.

2. in attrib. use of sense 1.

Atlanta Constitution (GA) 19 Sept. 9/3: The trouble started [...] by Lauzon making a joking reference to the ‘bonehead’ battery [i.e. pitchers].
[US]Sun (NY) 22 Sept. 7/1: All on acct. of some bonehead Frensh solders [sic] who was wandering around.
[SA]Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) 2 May 🌐 Let that bonehead white supremacist display his total idiocy to the world by waving the old South African flag.

3. a stubborn person.

[US]T. McNamara Us Boys 9 Apr. [synd. cartoon strip] Not a thing done. It’s all on account of that bonehead Puggy Malone.
[US]H.L. Wilson Professor How Could You! 141: Well, you old bonehead (one of strong character!).
[US]T.J. Farr ‘The Language of the Tennessee Mountain Regions’ in AS XIV:2 89: bonehead. Stubborn or unruly.
[US]Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
[WI]V. Bloom ‘Sun a-shine, rain a-fall’ in Duppy Jamboree 14: The devil call him wife bonehead, / She hiss her teeth, call him cock-eye.
[US]C. Hiaasen Nature Girl 286: Don’t die on me, you big bonehead.

4. a stupid error.

implied in pull a boner under boner n.3
[US]J. Thompson Swell-Looking Babe 53: That was her biggest bonehead, checking in [...] without a reservation.
[US]Wentworth & Flexner DAS.

5. (S.Afr.) an Afrikaaner; also as adj.

[SA]A. Lovejoy Acid Alex 17: The same kid taught me [...] all the words for Rockspiders – Crunchies, Hairybacks, Clutchplates, Planks, Ropes, Boneheads, Durchmen – . [Ibid.] 194: The stupid bonehead bullies have never come across a mallit who knows how to fight in handcuffs.

In compounds

bonehead English (n.)

(US campus) a remedial course in elementary English composition; thus ‘bonehead math,’ a similar course in mathematics .

[US]L.A. Times 11 Sept. 17/5: A course popularly termed ‘bonehead English’ which gives no regular credit.
Fresno Bee (CA) 8 Sept. 25/3: [headline] New Collegians Face ‘Bonehead English’ Test.
[US]S.F. Examiner 5 Oct. 9/1: ‘Bonehead English’ — a course of study that should not exist at all in a university but does [...] because grammar and high schools failed in their [teaching] duty .
[US]Great Falls Tribune (MT) 1 Jan. 5/2: Many high school graduates have been required to take a course [in] the fundamentals of spelling and grammar. This course [...] is known by the highly descriptive but unprofessional title of ‘bonehead English’.
[US]Times & Democrat (Orangeburg, SC) 7 May 7/2: ‘Rhetoric 101’ is the polite name for the course; the students called it ‘Bonehead English’.
[US]C. McFadden Serial 31: He [...] was currently teaching night classes in bonehead English.
[US]S.F. Examiner 19 Feb. 9/4: Bonehead English, a course that any self-respecting sixth grader could breeze through.
Reno Gaz.-Jrnl (NV) 8 Apr. 1/3: A number of students [...] simply aren’t prepared and are entering what was called in my day ‘bonehead math’ and ‘bonehead English’.
bonehead play (n.) (also bonehead move) [play n. (2); note locus classicus the ‘bonehead play’ committed by Giants 19-year-old Fred Merkle rookie substitute in Giants vs. Cubs game on 23 Sept. 1908; the term was coined by the NY press which headlined ‘Merkle’s Bonehead Play’ / move n. (2)]

(US) (orig. baseball) an elementary, obvious error or mistake; thus pull a bonehead play, to make an elementary error.

Wichita Beacon (KS) 25 July 3/1: Five errors were donated to help make it interesting, and the bonehead plays were numberless.
[US]A.H. Lewis Apaches of N.Y. 10 7: I don’t know as I’d call it a vice so much as a bonehead play.
[US]Lincoln (NE) State Journal 3 June n.p.: Some famous bonehead plays have been pulled in this city, but no council ever equalled the record of the present commissioners.
[US](con. 1917–18) C. MacArthur War Bugs 105: Shelter halves were oozing with mud, another result of the bonehead play.
[US]E. O’Neill Long Day’s Journey into Night Act I: Harke came in person to rebuke Shaughnessy. (He chuckles.) A very bonehead play!
Bowers Mob [film] It sounds like a bonehead play, but the badge he flashed was the McCoy [HDAS].
[US]C. Perry Portrait of a Young Man Drowning (1963) 121: That was a bonehead play.
N.Y Post 23 Mar. 89: The individual made a bonehead play, in my judgment [HDAS].
theSabre.com 30 Sept. 🌐 Watching the games this past Saturday, even the most casual football fan had to be scratching their heads, and other parts of their bodies, watching some of the bonehead plays coaches called which were tantamount to handing your enemy a loaded gun.
[US]Dave Chun 7 Nov. [blog] Rich and I ended up leaving first and we forgot to pay our drink tabs before we left! Aiyee. What a total bonehead play. Now Jish et al. are sending Guido to break our legs.
[US]T. Robinson Hard Bounce [ebook] [I]t suddenly popped into my head just what a bonehead move we [...] were about to make.

In phrases