marrowbone

Noun

marrowbone (plural marrowbones)

1. A bone containing edible marrow.
   • And thy skull and thy marrow-bones will I have away to Carcë, to my palace, to be a token unto all the world that I have been the bane of an hundredth great champion by my wrastling, and thou not least among them that I have slain in that exercise.1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros: A Romance, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, page 21
2. (humorous, in plural) The shins or knees, chiefly in references to kneeling.
   • Upon this condescension, the culprit was called up stairs^([sic]), and made acquainted with the mitigation of his fate; upon which he said, he would down on his marrow-bones to his own master, but would be damn'd before he would ask pardon of e'er a Frenchman in Christendom.1751, [Tobias] Smollett, chapter 56, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume II, London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC
   • So the news of the split between the old and the young one caused plenty of conversation, you may be sure; and will Mr. Robert go down on his marrowbones? and what has he done? was all the question.1861, Eneas Sweetland Dallas, Once a Week, volume 4, page 246