Word.ws English Dictionary

speal-bone

speal-bone noun: the shoulder blade.

Noun

speal-bone (plural speal-bones)

  1. (Scotland, obsolete) The shoulder blade.
    • In heteroscopic divination the process is rather one of inference from external facts. The methods are very various. […] In haruspication, or the inspection of entrails, in scapulomancy or divination by the speal-bone or shoulder-blade, in divination by footprints in ashes, found in Australia, Peru...1911, “Divination”, in Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition, volume 8, New York, N.Y.: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., page 333

Forms of speal-bone

pluralspeal-bones

Origin of speal-bone

A variant of spule (“shoulder”) + bane (“bone”).

Questions about speal-bone

What does speal-bone mean?
Speal-bone means the shoulder blade.
What part of speech is speal-bone?
Speal-bone is a noun.
What is the plural of speal-bone?
The plural of speal-bone is speal-bones.

Words near speal-bone in the dictionary

  1. speaks volumes
  2. speaks well of
  3. speaks with a forked tongue
  4. speakworthy
  5. speal
  6. speal-bone
  7. speal-bones
  8. spealbone
  9. spealbones
  10. spean
  11. Spean Bridge

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: speal-bone (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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