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hone.

A sharpening stone composed of extra-fine grit used for removing the burr or curl from the blade of a razor or some other edge tool.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/hoʊn/General-American/həʊn/Received-Pronunciation
  1. A sharpening stone composed of extra-fine grit used for removing the burr or curl from the blade of a razor or some other edge tool.

  2. A machine tool used in the manufacture of precision bores.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English hon (“whetstone”), from Old English hān, from Proto-Germanic *hainō (compare Dutch heen, Norwegian hein), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱeh₃i- (“to sharpen”) (compare Ancient Greek κῶνος (kônos, “cone”), Persian سان (sân, “whetstone”)).

verb/hoʊn/General-American/həʊn/Received-Pronunciation
  1. To sharpen with a hone; to whet.

    transitive
  2. To use a hone to produce a precision bore.

    transitive
  3. To refine (a skill especially) by learning.

    transitive
  4. To make more acute, intense, or effective.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English hon (“whetstone”), from Old English hān, from Proto-Germanic *hainō (compare Dutch heen, Norwegian hein), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱeh₃i- (“to sharpen”) (compare Ancient Greek κῶνος (kônos, “cone”), Persian سان (sân, “whetstone”)).

noun/hoʊn/General-American/həʊn/Received-Pronunciation
  1. A kind of swelling in the cheek.

Where this word comes from

Cognate with Icelandic hnúður. Distantly related to knot.

verb/hoʊn/General-American/həʊn/Received-Pronunciation
  1. To grumble.

    Southern-US · UK · US · dialectal · intransitive
  2. To pine, lament, or long.

    Southern-US · UK · US · dialectal
Where this word comes from

French hogner (“to grumble”), which could be a cross of honnir (“to disgrace, shame”) and grogner (“to grunt”).

intj/hoʊn/General-American/həʊn/Received-Pronunciation
  1. Synonym of alas Used to express sorrow, or grief

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.