Word.ws English Dictionary

redbone

US/ˈɹɛd.boʊn/

redbone noun: a dark-red or tan coonhound.

redbone: a dark-red or tan coonhound
Image: 127177p, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

redbone (plural redbones)

  1. (US) A dark-red or tan coonhound.
  2. (Louisiana, US) An African American with light skin with red undertones.
    • Redbones are commonly supposed to represent a fusion of the Indian, Negro, and white races […]1936, LA bulletin: Agricultural Experiment Station of the Louisiana State University & A. & M. College, numbers 268-293, page 13
    • The store attracted countless colorful characters, including Native Americans, wild-cowboy Texans, Chinese laborers, and “redbones,” the offspring of African Americans and Native Americans.2009, Janet Allured, Judith F. Gentry, Louisiana Women: Their Lives and Times, page 122

Noun (2) capitalized: Redbone

Redbone (plural Redbones)

  1. A member of any of several specific North American ethnic groups called Redbones

Forms of redbone

pluralredbones
pluralRedbones

Origin of redbone

From red + bone.

Questions about redbone

What does redbone mean?
Redbone means a dark-red or tan coonhound.
What part of speech is redbone?
Redbone is a noun.
How do you pronounce redbone?
Redbone is pronounced /ˈɹɛd.boʊn/ (US).
What is the plural of redbone?
The plural of redbone is redbones.

Words near redbone in the dictionary

  1. redbird
  2. redbird cactus
  3. redbirds
  4. Redblack
  5. Redblacks
  6. redbone
  7. redbones
  8. redbook
  9. redbooks
  10. Redbourn
  11. Redbournberry

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: redbone (page history and authors); Redbone (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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Cite this entry: “redbone.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/redbone. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.