Word.ws English Dictionary

break-bones

break-bones noun: any bird in the genus Macronectes, known as giant petrels.

break-bones: any bird in the genus Macronectes, known as giant petrels
Image: Liam Quinn from Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

break-bones (plural break-bones)

  1. Any bird in the genus Macronectes, known as giant petrels.
    • These southern seas are frequented by several species of Petrels: the largest kind, Procellaria gigantea, or nelly (quebrantahuesos, or break-bones, of the Spaniards), is a common bird, both in the inland channels and on the open sea. In its habits and manner of flight, there is a very close...1839, Charles Darwin, chapter 13, in The Voyage of the Beagle, volume 29, New York: P. F. Collier & Son, published 1909
    • Whilst we were at work on the beach, crowds of birds began to assemble, especially the Giant Petrel or "Breakbones" (Ossifraga gigantea), the "Nelly" or "Stinker" of sealers. This bird in its habits is most remarkably like the vulture.1879, Henry Mottidge Moseley, “Kerguelen's Land”, in Notes by a Naturalist on the Challenger, Cambridge University Press, published 2014, →ISBN, pages 205–206

Synonyms of break-bones

Forms of break-bones

pluralbreak-bones
alternative formbreakbones

Origin of break-bones

From break + bones, calque of Spanish quebrantahuesos.

Questions about break-bones

What does break-bones mean?
Break-bones means any bird in the genus Macronectes, known as giant petrels.
What part of speech is break-bones?
Break-bones is a noun.
What is the plural of break-bones?
The plural of break-bones is break-bones.

Words near break-bones in the dictionary

  1. break with
  2. break with tradition
  3. break-ax
  4. break-axe
  5. break-axes
  6. break-bones
  7. break-building
  8. break-bulk
  9. break-bulks
  10. break-dance
  11. break-danced

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: break-bones (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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