Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A velocipede (the bicycle of the late 1860s).
  • noun Something jolty.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any wheeled vehicle that is dilapidated and uncomfortable

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

bone + shaker, from the uncomfortableness of the ride.

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Examples

  • Inasmuch as the pennyfarthing or "p-far" is roughly 140 years old, and its predecessor, the so-called "boneshaker," is not much older, one wonders what sort of conveyance a bike messenger could possibly have been riding back in 1810, when even the crotch-torturing "dandyhorse" was but a phantom throbbing in inventor Karl Drais's "pants yabbies."

    The Way We Were: The Future's So "Meh" I Gotta Wear Pom Poms BikeSnobNYC 2010

  • Rumours reach us from correspondants as far afield as Prussia and the British Central Africa that Mr. I.K. Brunel will once again attempt to befuddle the unenlightened with the announcement of the "ha'penny farthing" - a contraption that according to some will spell the end of such outmoded contrivances as the horse and cart, hansom cab, the Iron Jenny and even the sensation of the last year - the 'boneshaker'.

    Search Engine Optimization and Marketing News provided by Cumbrowski.com 2010

  • Mr Armstrong had gone for the day to visit one of his very few old college friends on the other side of the county, and Tom, released from his lessons (the captain's animosity for the tutor, by the way, stopped short at withdrawing his son from the benefit of the gratuitous education of which for the last year that youth had been the recipient) was trundling a "boneshaker" bicycle along the Yeld lanes, when he perceived the jaunty form of Mr Ratman, bag in hand and cigar in mouth, strolling leisurely in the direction of Maxfield.

    Roger Ingleton, Minor Talbot Baines Reed 1872

  • Away from the crystal waters, my little ones love the open, boneshaker cable car ride to the 1,019m summit of Monte Capanne, for views as far as Corsica and right up the Tuscan coast.

    Summer holidays: 10 best places for under-fives 2011

  • When I had last ridden here in late April, jagged cracks ran through the clay and the bone-dry soil turned my bike into a boneshaker.

    Country diary: Tempsford, Bedfordshire 2011

  • Just under three hours from Kings X to Newcastle Central as opposed to 2.5 hours KX to Darlington then an interminable wait for the boneshaker from the Bishop Auckland to Saltburn line which will drop you off in the Boro after around another 40 minutes.

    Why it's continental glamour or bust for Sunderland and Newcastle | Louise Taylor 2011

  • She starts with the mechanics, briskly moving from 1817's laufmaschine running machine to the hobbyhorse, boneshaker and high wheeler.

    "Wheels of Change," a kids' history of women and bicycles 2011

  • When I had last ridden here in late April, jagged cracks ran through the clay and the bone-dry soil turned my bike into a boneshaker.

    Country diary: Tempsford, Bedfordshire 2011

  • She starts with the mechanics, briskly moving from 1817's laufmaschine running machine to the hobbyhorse, boneshaker and high wheeler.

    "Wheels of Change," a kids' history of women and bicycles 2011

  • I have seen alot of positive reviews of boneshaker.

    Hugo Nominations grrm 2010

Comments

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  • Perhaps he should take her on another honeymoon: a bicycle tour, like his father and mother went on big-wheeled boneshakers.

    - Malcolm Lowry, October Ferry to Gabriola

    July 30, 2008

  • That's odd... I thought this was on my Deadwood list. Hmm. *adds it*

    July 30, 2008

  • better than a bone-quaker?!

    July 23, 2013