boneless

== English == === Etymology === From Middle English bonles, banles, from Old English bānlēas (“boneless”), from Proto-Germanic *bainalausaz, equivalent to bone +‎ -less. Cognate with Scots baneless (“boneless”), Dutch beenloos (“boneless; legless”), German beinlos (“legless”), Swedish benlös (“boneless”), Icelandic beinlaus (“boneless”). === Pronunciation === === Adjective === boneless (comparative more boneless, superlative most boneless) Without bones, especially as pertaining to meat or poultry prepared for eating. Antonyms: unboned; bone-in Coordinate terms: semiboneless; skinless Near-synonyms: boned, deboned (US, humorous) Without pizza crust; without pizza bones (chiefly British, figuratively) Lacking strength, courage, or resolve. Synonyms: gutless, spineless; see also Thesaurus:cowardly 1931, Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 13 May: I remember, when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum's circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit [...] which I most desired to see was the one described as "The Boneless Wonder." My parents judged that the spectacle would be too revolting and demoralizing for my youthful eyes, and I have waited fifty years to see the boneless wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench. ==== Derived terms ==== ==== Translations ==== === References === John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “boneless”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN. === Anagrams === noblesse