bonce

English

Etymology 1

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɒns

Noun

bonce (plural bonces)

1. (British slang) the human head
   • 2004, Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty, Bloomsbury, 2005, Chapter 9,

     To see Nina herself Nick had to crane round the big white bonce of Norman Kent, who was as sensitive to music as he was to conservatives, and kept shifting in his seat.

   • 2010, Skins, Season 4 Episode 8, "Everyone".

     Cook: I don't think you know what I am, mate. ... I'm a fucking waste of space. I'm just a stupid kid. I got no sense. A criminal. I'm no fucking use, me. I am nothing. So, please... please... get it into, you know, into your bonce... that you killed my friend. And... I'm Cook. I'M COOK!

Etymology 2

Noun

bonce (plural bonces)

1. (dated) The kind of marble used in the game of bonce about.
   • 1863, The Boy's Handy Book of Sports, Pastimes, Games and Amusements, Part I, page 22:

     BONCE ABOUT is played with a big kind of marbles, called “bonces.” … The first player puts down his bonce, […]

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “bonce”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)