"breakbone" meaning in English

See breakbone in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adjective

Forms: more breakbone [comparative], most breakbone [superlative]
Etymology: From break + bone. Etymology templates: {{compound|en|break|bone}} break + bone Head templates: {{en-adj}} breakbone (comparative more breakbone, superlative most breakbone)
  1. Violent; rough and painful. Synonyms: backbreaking
    Sense id: en-breakbone-en-adj-tl6s~k9v Categories (other): English links with manual fragments, English exocentric verb-noun compounds Disambiguation of English exocentric verb-noun compounds: 27 38 35

Noun

Forms: breakbones [plural]
Etymology: From break + bone. Etymology templates: {{compound|en|break|bone}} break + bone Head templates: {{en-noun|~}} breakbone (countable and uncountable, plural breakbones)
  1. (pathology, uncountable) Breakbone fever. Tags: uncountable Synonyms: dengue, dengue fever, dandy fever
    Sense id: en-breakbone-en-noun-nKmWogLd Categories (other): Diseases, English entries with incorrect language header, English exocentric verb-noun compounds, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Vector-borne diseases, Viral diseases Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 24 54 22 Disambiguation of English exocentric verb-noun compounds: 27 38 35 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 25 57 18 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 25 57 18 Disambiguation of Vector-borne diseases: 21 65 14 Disambiguation of Viral diseases: 7 85 8 Topics: medicine, pathology, sciences
  2. (US dialect, countable) A chicken's wishbone. Tags: US, countable, dialectal Synonyms: wishing bone, furcula, merrythought
    Sense id: en-breakbone-en-noun-CKoTf7OF Categories (other): American English, English exocentric verb-noun compounds Disambiguation of English exocentric verb-noun compounds: 27 38 35
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Related terms: Bonebrake, Brisbane

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "break",
        "3": "bone"
      },
      "expansion": "break + bone",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From break + bone.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "breakbones",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "~"
      },
      "expansion": "breakbone (countable and uncountable, plural breakbones)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "Bonebrake"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "Brisbane"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Diseases",
          "orig": "en:Diseases",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "24 54 22",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "27 38 35",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English exocentric verb-noun compounds",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "25 57 18",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "25 57 18",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "21 65 14",
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Vector-borne diseases",
          "orig": "en:Vector-borne diseases",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "7 85 8",
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Viral diseases",
          "orig": "en:Viral diseases",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              232,
              241
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1892 May 17, “At the Dry Tortugas During the War”, in The Californian Illustrated Magazine, volume 1, number 6, page 586:",
          "text": "All felt that their safety was in his hands and that his careful watch and strict enforcement of the quarantine would result in our exemption from the scourge. He was obeyed implicitly, and for a time we escaped the fever, but the \"breakbone\" singled us out one by one, and several times alarming symptoms of the dreaded yellow fever appeared.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              205,
              214
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1859, Dr. Samuel Henry Dickson, “Diseases of the Excernent System”, in Elements of Medicine, 2nd edition, page 748:",
          "text": "Besides this, yellow fever and scarlatina are two of the gravest maladies on the catalogues of the nosologists, and produce, everywhere, a serious mortality when they prevail. But nobody dies of dengue or breakbone; no, not one in one thousand, taken promiscuously, and under all circumstances of discomfort or mal-treatment. As to its relations with malaria and malarious diseases, it suffices to remark that it is not produced, nor has I been known to spread, in the worst malarious localities.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              31,
              40
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "[2004, Katherine White, Dengue Fever, Rosen Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 36:",
          "text": "A nickname for the disease is \"breakbone\" because it feels like your bones are breaking.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Breakbone fever."
      ],
      "id": "en-breakbone-en-noun-nKmWogLd",
      "links": [
        [
          "pathology",
          "pathology"
        ],
        [
          "Breakbone fever",
          "breakbone fever"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(pathology, uncountable) Breakbone fever."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "dengue"
        },
        {
          "word": "dengue fever"
        },
        {
          "word": "dandy fever"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "uncountable"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "medicine",
        "pathology",
        "sciences"
      ]
    },
    {
      "attestations": [
        {
          "date": "c. 1960s",
          "references": []
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "American English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "27 38 35",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English exocentric verb-noun compounds",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              0,
              9
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "[2000, Robert Hendrickson, editor, The Facts on File Dictionary of American Regionalisms, Infobase Publishing, →ISBN, page 30:",
          "text": "breakbone A chicken's wishbone; also called the breaking bone or pulleybone.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A chicken's wishbone."
      ],
      "id": "en-breakbone-en-noun-CKoTf7OF",
      "links": [
        [
          "wishbone",
          "wishbone"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(US dialect, countable) A chicken's wishbone."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "wishing bone"
        },
        {
          "word": "furcula"
        },
        {
          "word": "merrythought"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "countable",
        "dialectal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "breakbone"
}

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "break",
        "3": "bone"
      },
      "expansion": "break + bone",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From break + bone.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "more breakbone",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "most breakbone",
      "tags": [
        "superlative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "breakbone (comparative more breakbone, superlative most breakbone)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English links with manual fragments",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "27 38 35",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English exocentric verb-noun compounds",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Near-synonym: backbreaking"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              62,
              71
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1869 January 17, Dr. Alex M. Vedder, “Remarks on the Actual State of Medical Science in Japan”, in The American Journal of the Medical Sciences, volume 57, number 113, page 47:",
          "text": "Shampooing, as employed in Japan, is not exactly the vigorous breakbone manipulation of the Turks at the namman, and which makes one imagine that every joint in the body must have been dislocated.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Violent; rough and painful."
      ],
      "id": "en-breakbone-en-adj-tl6s~k9v",
      "links": [
        [
          "Violent",
          "violent"
        ],
        [
          "rough",
          "rough"
        ],
        [
          "painful",
          "painful"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "backbreaking"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "breakbone"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English adjectives",
    "English compound terms",
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English exocentric verb-noun compounds",
    "English lemmas",
    "English nouns",
    "English uncountable nouns",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries",
    "en:Vector-borne diseases",
    "en:Viral diseases"
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "break",
        "3": "bone"
      },
      "expansion": "break + bone",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From break + bone.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "breakbones",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "~"
      },
      "expansion": "breakbone (countable and uncountable, plural breakbones)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "Bonebrake"
    },
    {
      "word": "Brisbane"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English uncountable nouns",
        "en:Diseases"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              232,
              241
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1892 May 17, “At the Dry Tortugas During the War”, in The Californian Illustrated Magazine, volume 1, number 6, page 586:",
          "text": "All felt that their safety was in his hands and that his careful watch and strict enforcement of the quarantine would result in our exemption from the scourge. He was obeyed implicitly, and for a time we escaped the fever, but the \"breakbone\" singled us out one by one, and several times alarming symptoms of the dreaded yellow fever appeared.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              205,
              214
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1859, Dr. Samuel Henry Dickson, “Diseases of the Excernent System”, in Elements of Medicine, 2nd edition, page 748:",
          "text": "Besides this, yellow fever and scarlatina are two of the gravest maladies on the catalogues of the nosologists, and produce, everywhere, a serious mortality when they prevail. But nobody dies of dengue or breakbone; no, not one in one thousand, taken promiscuously, and under all circumstances of discomfort or mal-treatment. As to its relations with malaria and malarious diseases, it suffices to remark that it is not produced, nor has I been known to spread, in the worst malarious localities.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              31,
              40
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "[2004, Katherine White, Dengue Fever, Rosen Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 36:",
          "text": "A nickname for the disease is \"breakbone\" because it feels like your bones are breaking.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Breakbone fever."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "pathology",
          "pathology"
        ],
        [
          "Breakbone fever",
          "breakbone fever"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(pathology, uncountable) Breakbone fever."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "dengue"
        },
        {
          "word": "dengue fever"
        },
        {
          "word": "dandy fever"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "uncountable"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "medicine",
        "pathology",
        "sciences"
      ]
    },
    {
      "attestations": [
        {
          "date": "c. 1960s",
          "references": []
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        "American English",
        "English countable nouns",
        "English dialectal terms",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              0,
              9
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "[2000, Robert Hendrickson, editor, The Facts on File Dictionary of American Regionalisms, Infobase Publishing, →ISBN, page 30:",
          "text": "breakbone A chicken's wishbone; also called the breaking bone or pulleybone.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A chicken's wishbone."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "wishbone",
          "wishbone"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(US dialect, countable) A chicken's wishbone."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "wishing bone"
        },
        {
          "word": "furcula"
        },
        {
          "word": "merrythought"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "countable",
        "dialectal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "breakbone"
}

{
  "categories": [
    "English adjectives",
    "English compound terms",
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English exocentric verb-noun compounds",
    "English lemmas",
    "English nouns",
    "English uncountable nouns",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries",
    "en:Vector-borne diseases",
    "en:Viral diseases"
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "break",
        "3": "bone"
      },
      "expansion": "break + bone",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From break + bone.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "more breakbone",
      "tags": [
        "comparative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "most breakbone",
      "tags": [
        "superlative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "breakbone (comparative more breakbone, superlative most breakbone)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English links with manual fragments",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Near-synonym: backbreaking"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              62,
              71
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1869 January 17, Dr. Alex M. Vedder, “Remarks on the Actual State of Medical Science in Japan”, in The American Journal of the Medical Sciences, volume 57, number 113, page 47:",
          "text": "Shampooing, as employed in Japan, is not exactly the vigorous breakbone manipulation of the Turks at the namman, and which makes one imagine that every joint in the body must have been dislocated.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Violent; rough and painful."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Violent",
          "violent"
        ],
        [
          "rough",
          "rough"
        ],
        [
          "painful",
          "painful"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "backbreaking"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "breakbone"
}

Download raw JSONL data for breakbone meaning in English (5.0kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-01-19 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-01-01 using wiktextract (d1270d2 and 9905b1f). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.