(~s, boning, ~d)
Frequency: The word is one of the 3000 most common words in English.
1.
Your ~s are the hard parts inside your body which together form your skeleton.
Many passengers suffered broken ~s...
Stephen fractured a thigh ~...
The body is made up primarily of ~, muscle, and fat...
She scooped the chicken ~s back into the stewpot.
N-VAR
2.
If you ~ a piece of meat or fish, you remove the ~s from it before cooking it.
Make sure that you do not pierce the skin when boning the chicken thighs...
VERB: V n
3.
A ~ tool or ornament is made of ~.
...a small, expensive pocketknife with a ~ handle.
ADJ: usu ADJ n
4.
see also marrow ~ , T-~ steak
5.
The bare ~s of something are its most basic parts or details.
There are not even the bare ~s of a garden here–I’ve got nothing.
PHRASE
6.
If something is too close to the ~, it makes you feel uncomfortable because it is very close to the truth or to the real nature of something.
PHRASE: usu v-link PHR
7.
If you make no ~s about something, you talk openly about it, rather than trying to keep it a secret.
Some of them make no ~s about their political views.
PHRASE: V inflects, usu PHR about n
8.
If you make no ~s about doing something that is unpleasant or difficult or that might upset someone else, you do it without hesitating.
Stafford-Clark made no ~s about reapplying for the job when Daldry was standing for it.
PHRASE: V inflects, usu PHR about -ing
9.
If something such as costs are cut to the ~, they are reduced to the minimum possible.
It has survived by cutting its costs to the ~...
Profit margins have been slashed to the ~ in an attempt to keep turnover moving.
PHRASE: PHR after v
10.
You use to the ~ to indicate that you are very deeply affected by something. For example, if you feel chilled to the ~, your whole body feels extremely cold, often because you have had a shock.
What I saw chilled me to the ~.
PHRASE: PHR after v