Word.ws English Dictionary

boning up

boning up is the present participle and gerund of bone up.

Meaning of bone up

Verb

bone up (third-person singular simple present bones up, present participle boning up, simple past and past participle boned up)

  1. (intransitive, slang) To study or cram, especially in order to refresh one's knowledge of a topic.
    • Information acquired in that way, makes an impression ; this "boning" up for an examination is all right as a finishing touch, but it will not last.1913, William Christian Schmeisser, Are You Going To College?, page 132

Questions about boning up

What is boning up the present participle and gerund of?
Boning up is the present participle and gerund of bone up.

Words near boning up in the dictionary

  1. boning knife
  2. boning knives
  3. boning out
  4. boning rod
  5. boning rods
  6. boning up
  7. bonings
  8. Bonini
  9. boninic acid
  10. Boninis
  11. boninite

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: boning up (page history and authors); bone up (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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