Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The hipbone.
  • noun The ankle-bone; the tarsal bone known in anatomy as the astragalus. See cut under foot.
  • noun plural A game played with hucklebones. The Greeks used the astragalus for the same purpose.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • Latham gives "hucklebone," (or cockal), one of the small vertebræ of the coccygis, and Littleton translates "Talus," a hucklebone,

    Arabian nights. English Anonymous 1855

  • This, then, is the position of the hucklebone in the case of all animals provided with the part.

    The History of Animals 2002

  • Thus it is that in such animals as have a hucklebone, it is only in the posterior and not in the anterior limbs that this bone is found.

    On the Parts of Animals 2002

  • A poultice made of the fresh leaves, and applied externally two or three times in succession "will cure, if ever so violent, the old ache in the hucklebone known as sciatica."

    Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure William Thomas Fernie

  • It is from this chine that the bones of the limbs, in such animals as have these parts, proceed, and with it they are continuous, being fastened together by the sinews where the limbs admit of flexure, and having their extremities adapted to each other, either by the one being hollowed and the other rounded, or by both being hollowed and including between them a hucklebone, as a connecting bolt, so as to allow of flexure and extension.

    On the Parts of Animals 2002

  • hucklebone,” (or cockal), one of the small vertebræ of the coccygis, and Littleton translates “Talus,” a hucklebone, a bone to play with like a dye, a play called cockal.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

Comments

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  • In coping with effects of harm

    "It could have been worse" has its charm:

    'Twas luck alone

    Spared my hucklebone

    While I crushed a superfluous arm.

    July 24, 2015