boning

Noun

boning (countable and uncountable, plural bonings)

1. The removal of bones from a carcass; filleting.
2. The arrangement of bones in a corset.
3. (slang, 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?2012, John van de Ruit, Spud - Exit, Pursued by a Bear
4. Bone structure.
   • She had substantial boning and a wider pelvic girdle than our larger bitch.2008, Carolyn Melvin, Life with Animals, →ISBN, page 168
   • 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.2012, Bronwyn Scott, How to Disgrace a Lady, →ISBN, page 95
5. The fertilization of a field with bone meal.
   • The long-continued good result of the bonings of the Cheshire farmers, effects which are said to be perceivable during the continuance of a lease, demonstrates that at least one known fertilizer is useful not merely for a season; and, moreover, as the enlightened Cheshire landlords have been long...1858, The Farmer's Magazine, page 364
   • 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.1872, The Country Gentleman's Magazine - Volume 9, page 358
6. 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).1900, Arthur Thomas Walmisley, Field work and instruments, page 264
   • The curbs being thus relaid to “bonings," they form the level from which all others are taken.1913, Proceedings of the Institution of Municipal Engineers
7. 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.1994, Dawn May, Aboriginal Labour and the Cattle Industry, →ISBN, page 87
   • As I say, Stagirius's symptons may well resemble those of an Aboriginal victim of boning.2004, Peter G. Toohey, Peter M. Toohey, Melancholy, Love, and Time: Boundaries of the Self in Ancient Literature, →ISBN, page 139