boneless

English

Etymology

From Middle English bonles, banles, from Old English bānlēas (“boneless”), from Proto-Germanic *bainalausaz, equivalent to bone +‎ -less. Cognate with Scots baneless (“boneless”), Dutch beenloos (“boneless; legless”), German beinlos (“legless”), Swedish benlös (“boneless”), Icelandic beinlaus (“boneless”).

Pronunciation

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Adjective

boneless (comparative more boneless, superlative most boneless)

1. Without bones, especially as pertaining to meat or poultry prepared for eating.

   Antonyms: unboned; bone-in

   Coordinate terms: semiboneless; skinless

   Near-synonyms: boned, deboned

   boneless chicken

   boneless, skinless chicken

   boneless wings

   • 1905 April–October, Upton Sinclair, chapter XIV, in The Jungle, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 26 February 1906, →OCLC:

     The packers were always originating such schemes—they had what they called "boneless hams," which were all the odds and ends of pork stuffed into casings.

   • 1954, Ian Fleming, “Allumeuse”, in Live and Let Die, London: Pan Books, published 1957, page 107:

     They argued over the menu. The fish was described as being 'Made From Flaky Tender Boneless Filets and the chicken as 'Delicious French Fried to a Golden Brown, Served Disjointed.'

2. (US, humorous) Without pizza crust; without pizza bones.
3. (chiefly UK, figuratively) Lacking strength, courage, or resolve.

   Synonyms: gutless, spineless; see also Thesaurus:cowardly

   • 1916, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 18, in Uneasy Money:

     I'm scared, I'm just boneless with fright.

   • 1931, Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 13 May:

     I remember, when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum's circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit [...] which I most desired to see was the one described as "The Boneless Wonder." My parents judged that the spectacle would be too revolting and demoralizing for my youthful eyes, and I have waited fifty years to see the boneless wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench.

   • 2006 November 11, Graham Searjeant, “Loyalty pays off for M&S shareholders”, in The Times, London:

     Had the Green consortium made a straight bid, boneless fund managers would easily have outvoted private investors.

   • 2014 May 11, Ivan Hewett, “Piano Man: a Life of John Ogdon by Charles Beauclerk, review: A new biography of the great British pianist whose own genius destroyed him [print version: A colossus off-key, 10 May 2014, p. R27]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review)‎^[1]:

     In his final years he [John Ogdon] gave an interview to an American journalist who noticed that "his handshake is a boneless fadeaway["].

4. (furniture, informal) Of a couch, cushionlike due to lacking a hard internal frame.

Derived terms

• boneless lean beef trimmings
• bonelessly
• bonelessness
• semiboneless

Translations

without bones

• Bulgarian: обезкостен (bg) (obezkosten)
• Catalan: desossat
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 無骨 / 无骨 (mou⁴ gwat¹)

• Finnish: luuton (fi), ruodoton (fi) (of fish)
• French: désossé (fr)
• German: schier (de)
• Greek:

  Ancient Greek: ἀνόστεος (anósteos)

• Icelandic: beinlaus
• Irish: díchnámhaithe, gan chnámha
• Italian: disossato (it)
• Latin: exos, exossis
• Macedonian: обескостен (obeskosten)
• Māori: iwikore
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: beinløs, beinlaus, benløs

  Nynorsk: beinlaus

• Polish: bezkostny
• Portuguese: desossado (pt)
• Romanian: dezosat (ro), dezosat (ro) m
• Spanish: deshuesado (es)
• Swedish: benfri (sv)
• Tagalog: hukhok
• Turkish: kemiksiz (tr)

  Ottoman Turkish: كمیكسز (kemiksiz)

• Welsh: diasgwrn, heb esgyrn

References

• John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “boneless”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.

Anagrams

• noblesse