Word.ws English Dictionary

hone

UK/həʊn//hoʊn/

hone noun: a sharpening stone composed of extra-fine grit used for removing the burr or curl from the blade of a razor or some other edge tool.

Noun (1)

hone (plural hones)

  1. A sharpening stone composed of extra-fine grit used for removing the burr or curl from the blade of a razor or some other edge tool.
  2. A machine tool used in the manufacture of precision bores.

Verb (1)

hone (third-person singular simple present hones, present participle honing, simple past and past participle honed)

  1. (transitive) To sharpen with a hone; to whet.
  2. (transitive) To use a hone to produce a precision bore.
  3. (transitive) To refine (a skill especially) by learning.
    • He also honed the procedure known as cut and fill - whereby the spoil from railway cuttings was used to build up embankments.2023 August 23, David E Norris, “Joseph Locke: a railway injustice...”, in RAIL, number 990, page 56
    • Huh? Training in your room under the torchlight / Hone that form to get you ready for the big fight2011, “Revenge”, CaptainSparklez (lyrics), Doc Exx (music), performed by TryHardNinja, parody of Usher's DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love
  4. To make more acute, intense, or effective.

Noun (2)

hone (plural hones)

  1. A kind of swelling in the cheek.

Verb (2)

hone (third-person singular simple present hones, present participle honing, simple past and past participle honed)

  1. (Southern US, UK, US, dialectal, intransitive) To grumble.
    • Such tunges ſhuld be torne out by the harde rootes,c. 1515–1516, published 1568, John Skelton, Againſt venemous tongues enpoyſoned with ſclaunder and falſe detractions &c.
  2. (Southern US, UK, US, dialectal) To pine, lament, or long.
    • He lies pitying himself, honing and moaning to himself1823, Elia [pseudonym; Charles Lamb], Elia. Essays which have Appeared under that Signature in The London Magazine, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], →OCLC

Interjection

  1. Synonym of alas Used to express sorrow, or grief
    • Oh, hone! oh, hone! miserable wretch that I am! Do ye mak confession for me, Sir, and I'll say 't after you, as weel as I dow. Oh, hone! oh, hone!1836, Joanna Baillie, Witchcraft, Act 4, page 141
    Synonyms:
    alas Used to express sorrow, or grief

Proper noun capitalized: Hone

Hone

  1. A surname.

hone meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu

hone in Tamil

sharpening stone
சாணை cāṇai

hone in Urdu

غم اندوز ہونا, ہڑکنا, کراہنا, کڑھنا

hone in Bengali

শান দেওয়া, ধার দেওয়া

hone in Telugu

హోన్
More languagesFewer languages
hone in Malayalam
അണക്കല്ല്, ചാണക്കല്ല്
hone in Kannada
ಮಸೆಕಲ್ಲು, ಮಸೆಗಲ್ಲು, ಸಾಣೆಗಲ್ಲು, ಕಲ್ಲುಜಾತಿ
hone in Punjabi
ਹੌਨ
hone in Indonesian
mengasah
hone in Vietnamese
mài, dũa

Examples of hone in a sentence

  • Honing the band's anthemic sound and stance, they relocated to Richmond and created a solid lineup.
  • He has created for himself a honed, primed-for-victory body and is working hard on a ditto mind.
  • In other words, we must hone our skills of flightcraft to a new level of efficiency.

All 26 example sentences with hone

Synonyms of hone

  • alas Used to express sorrow
  • or grief

Forms of hone

Noun
pluralhones
Verb
third-person singular presenthones
present participlehoning
past participlehoned
pasthoned

Past tense of hone: honed

Plural of hone: hones

Origin of hone

From Middle English hon (“whetstone”), from Old English hān, from Proto-Germanic *hainō (compare Dutch heen, Norwegian hein), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱeh₃i- (“to sharpen”) (compare Ancient Greek κῶνος (kônos, “cone”), Persian سان (sân, “whetstone”)).

Cognate with Icelandic hnúður. Distantly related to knot.

French hogner (“to grumble”), which could be a cross of honnir (“to disgrace, shame”) and grogner (“to grunt”).

Words formed from hone

Words that rhyme with hone

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about hone

What does hone mean?
Hone means a sharpening stone composed of extra-fine grit used for removing the burr or curl from the blade of a razor or some other edge tool.
What is hone in Tamil?
Hone in Tamil is சாணை (cāṇai). See Hone meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is hone?
Hone can be a noun, a verb, an interjection or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce hone?
Hone is pronounced /hoʊn/ (US).
What is the plural of hone?
The plural of hone is hones.

Words near hone in the dictionary

  1. Hondurean
  2. Hondureans
  3. Hondureño-
  4. Hondurian
  5. Hondurians
  6. hone
  7. hone in
  8. Honea
  9. Honea Path
  10. Honeas
  11. honed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hone (page history and authors); Hone (page history and authors); hone (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); hone (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); hone (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); hone (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); hone (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); hone (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-hone.ogg.

Cite this entry: “hone.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hone. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.