breakbones

Noun

breakbone (countable and uncountable, plural breakbones)

1. (uncountable) Breakbone fever.
   • All felt that their safety was in his hands and that his careful watch and strict enforcement of the quarantine would result in our exemption from the scourge. He was obeyed implicitly, and for a time we escaped the fever, but the "breakbone" singled us out one by one, and several times alarming...1892 May, “At the Dry Tortugas During the War”, in The Californian Illustrated Magazine, volume 1, number 6, page 586

   Synonyms:

   dengue, dengue fever, dandy fever

2. (US, countable, dialectal) A chicken's wishbone.
   • breakbone A chicken's wishbone; also called the breaking bone or pulleybone.[2000, Robert Hendrickson, editor, The Facts on File Dictionary of American Regionalisms, Infobase Publishing, →ISBN, page 30

   Synonyms:

   wishing bone, furcula, merrythought

See all 3 meanings of breakbone

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

   Synonyms:

   glutton, nelly, stinker, stinkpot