boning

verb

1. (form-of, gerund, participle, present)present participle and gerund of bone

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)The removal of bones from a carcass; filleting.
2. (countable, uncountable)The arrangement of bones in a corset.
3. (countable, slang, uncountable, vulgar)An act of sexual intercourse.

   “How is it possible that somebody who looks like Thinny can have sex with so many women? Where are all these girls out there begging for bonings in cars?”

4. (countable, uncountable)Bone structure.

   “She had substantial boning and a wider pelvic girdle than our larger bitch.”

   “She had a perfect nose, narrow and faintly sloped at the end to give it character. It fit the delicate boning of her face, the slightly raised cheekbones one could only fully appreciate in profile, the generous mouth.”

   “This is a breed that's a medium size with a short, cobby body and heavy boning.”

5. (countable, uncountable)The fertilization of a field with bone meal.

   “Of the 84½ acres of pasture, 55 acres is one field, formerly eight, a mile distant from homestead ; it presents a good herbage, the result of repeated bonings.”

   “The soil, which was often only a few inches deep, and had hitherto been incapable of bearing crops was transformed by chalking, boning, by the planting of turnips, which, when eaten off by sheep, returned a rich manure to the ground, and by the use of oil cake for sheep feeding which enriched the land still further.”

6. (countable, uncountable)The process or result of leveling using a boning rod.

   “Boning is performed with boning rods, which exactly resemble T squares, as shown in fig 1 (page 265).”

   “The curbs being thus relaid to “bonings," they form the level from which all others are taken.”

   “This kind of boning would probably have been done crosswise over all four corners.”

7. (countable, uncountable)Placement of a curse by pointing with a bone, practiced by Australian aborigines; an act of pointing the bone.

   “The practice of 'boning' was particularly discouraged. Mrs Duncan Kemp remembered that on one occasion the white stockmen on her father's station had tied up an Aboriginal man and soundly beaten him after he had ignored repeated warnings about his 'boning' activities.”

   “As I say, Stagirius's symptons may well resemble those of an Aboriginal victim of boning.”

   “But the will to live, the will to achieve, was still strong, and with devastating suddenness it rebelled against the inevitability of the boning.”