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Hone   /hoʊn/   Listen
Hone

verb
(past & past part. honed; pres. part. honing)
1.
Sharpen with a hone.
2.
Make perfect or complete.  Synonym: perfect.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Hone" Quotes from Famous Books



... ring of speculators at figures which appal the man of moderate means. Of the various brands of 'cemetery,' that of Japan is most abundant, owing to the recent pestilence, but it is, fishy and rank. As for grain, or vegetable filling of any kind, there is hone in Persia, except the small lot I have on hand, which will be disposed of in limited quantities for ready money. But don't you foreigners bother about us-we shall get along all right-until I have disposed of my cereals. Persia does not need any ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile

... the various species of divination formerly in use, is given by Gaule in his Magastromancer, and quoted in Hone's Year-Book, p. 1517. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... there's a dog beyant the bark!" he cried a minute after, as the pup crept over to him and began to be friendly,—"I wonder is a mon sinsible to go to trustin' the loight o' any moon that shines full on a pitch-black noight whin 'tis rainin'? Och hone! but me stomach's that empty, gin I don't put on me shoes me lungs'll lake trou the soles o' me fate, and gin I do, me shoes they're that sopped, I'll cough them up—o-whurra-r-a! whurra-a! but will I iver see Old Oireland agin,—I ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright

... tells us there is a superstition that a child who does not cry when sprinkled in baptism will not live; and the same is recorded in Hone's Year-Book. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 233, April 15, 1854 • Various

... owns me do while I was away? and maybe it's break her heart the craythur would, thinking I was lost intirely; and who'd be at home to take care o' the childher' and airn thim the bit and the sup, whin I'd be away? and who knows but it's all dead they'd be afore I got back? Och hone! sure the heart id fairly break in my body, if hurt or harm kem to them, through me. So, say no more, Captain dear, only give me a thrifle o' directions how I'm to make an offer at gettin' home, and it's myself that will pray ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various

... days, and every day I'd stop in front of that window and jest naturally hone fur a slice of that vision. The Chink was standin' in the door ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... remarkable man, ninety-one when he died, and able to perform his duties very creditably within a year of his death—very creditably; but the hard winter of '56 took him off, poor fellow, and now I have a young man. Old Andrew Hone—that was my late clerk's name—was employed in this house when a lad, and was very fond of talking about Matthew Haygarth and his wife. She was a rich woman, you know, a very rich woman—the daughter of a brewer at Ullerton; and this house belonged to ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... scuffle. There is a talkative and witty seller of gingerbread holding forth to the people from his cart, making himself quite a noted character by his readiness of remark and humor, and disposing of all his wares. Late in the evening, during the fire-works, people are consulting how they are to get hone,— many having long miles to walk: a father, with wife and children, saying it will be twelve o'clock before they reach home, the children being already tired to death. The moon beautifully dark-bright, not giving so white a light ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... we rode quietly home in the gloaming, winding up the lovely, tranquil valley, at whose head stood our own snug little homestead. At first we were so glad to be safely at hone again that we scarcely gave a thought to our fruitless enterprise; but as our bruised bodies became rested and restored, our hearts began to ache when we thought of the money we had so rashly flung away ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... on it as I could see, For it was hatched out just sax weeks too soon! An' such long ears were niver grown before On any donkey in grane Ireland! So little, too, you'd hold it in your hand; Och hone! he would have made a gray donkey." So all the sad O'Flanigans that night Held a loud wake over the donkey gone, Eating their "pratees" without milk or salt, Howling between whiles, "Och! my little colt!" While Bunny, trembling from his dreadful fright, Skipped home to Mrs. B. by ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various

... arsk all the hole Court of common Counselmen, what on airth he was to do with 'em, and they told him to hinsult the Libery Committee on the matter, and they, like the lerned gents as they is, told him to take down sum of the werry biggest and the most strikingest as they'd got of their hone Picters and ang 'em up in the Gildhall Westybool, as they calls it, coz it's in the East, I spose, and so make room for a lot of the littel uns as had been sent to 'em, coz they was painted by "Old Marsters," tho' who "Old Marsters" was, I, for one, never could make out, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 30, 1892 • Various

... was partly due to the selection of the sharpener upon which they were whetted. The sole of a boot is no doubt suitable, but not when it contains nails, which was the case with those worn by the lads. The rail of a gate is harmless, while a smooth piece of slate makes a moderately good enough soft hone. But when it comes to rubbing a blade upon a piece of gneiss, quartz crystal, or granite, the result is most unsatisfactory, the edge of the knife being prone to look like a very bad imitation of a ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn

... result. So I sat down and put in an hour thinking out the mystery. Then it seemed plain—to wit: my hand can't give a razor an edge, it can only smooth and refine an edge that has already been given. I judge that a razor fresh from the hone is this shape V—the long point being the continuation of the edge—and that after much use the shape is this V—the attenuated edge all worn off and gone. By George I knew that was the explanation. And I knew that a freshly honed and freshly ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the boy and his tutor learned from his words that his poor wife was sick and helpless at hone, and that his orphaned grandchildren were suffering for food, while he, old and feeble, was striving by heavy toil to earn a crust. The old man invoked the blessing of Heaven upon the unknown but generous soul who ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey

... which our correspondent alludes is, probably, that quoted in Cecil's (Hone's) Sixty Curious and Authentic Narratives, pp. 138-140., from the Recreations of a Man of Feeling. The peerage and the pedigree of the Stair family alike prove that there is little foundation for this ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various

... in the drawing room of the hotel suite when they returned, sitting on the middle of his spinal column in a reclining chair, smoking a pipe, dressing the edge of his knife with a pocket-hone, and gazing lecherously at a young woman in the visiplate. She was an extremely well-designed young woman, in a rather fragmentary costume, and she was heaving her bosom at the invisible audience in anger, sorrow, scorn, entreaty, ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper

... and act up right," said Clinch pleasantly. "You oughter have more sense than to start a fight in my place—you and Sid Hone and Harvey ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers

... hone fer nothin' else ter look at—when you're hyar," he assured her. "But when you hain't hyar I loves ter look ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... a selfish brute, Josephine," I answered, beginning to hone my razor with the desperate air of one who would fain cut his own throat as the simplest solution of the problem ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant

... boxail' to him On the morning of the next day, To come till we would fight without doubt at the dawn of the day. The second fist I drew on him I struck him on the hone of his jaw, He fell, and it is no lie there was a ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge

... which he had been in the habit of frequenting formerly, when his first "Dramatic Specimens" were published. Now he went there to make other extracts from the old plays. These were entitled "The Garrick Plays," and were bestowed upon Mr. Hone, who was poor, and were by him published in his "Every Day Book." Subsequently they were collected by Charles himself, and formed a supplement to the earlier "Specimens." Lamb's labors in this task were by no means ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall

... help it," Henry replied. "The statement we sent out would simply serve to hone and strap public curiosity to a keen edge. I expected something of this sort. The only thing to do is to get through with it as soon ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read

... roar of applause went up from the polo-ground like the surge and wash of an Atlantic roller. The regimental hero was distinguishing himself—a state of affairs by no means unusual, for success always followed Hone. His luck was proverbial in the regiment, as sure and as ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... Magazine. He desires to express his thanks to Canon Erskine Clarke for kindly permitting him to reprint the articles, which have been expanded and in part rewritten. The Sports and Pastimes of England have had many chroniclers, both ancient and modern, amongst whom may be mentioned Strutt, Brand, Hone, Stow, and several others, to whose works the writer is indebted for much ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... return from Hone's trial, suddenly stopped his carriage at Charing Cross, and said, "It occurs to me that they sell the best herrings in London at that ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon

... 238.).—For the information of your correspondent A. B. R., I copy the passage referred to by you in the disputed Gospel of Nicodemus, formerly called the Acts of Pontius Pilate. The extract is from an English version, printed for William Hone, ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 179. Saturday, April 2, 1853. • Various

... till two; then went to look at the drawings for repairing Murthly, the house of Sir John or James Stewart, now building by Gillespie Graham, and which he has planned after the fashion of James VI.'s reign, a kind of bastard Grecian[391]—very fanciful and pretty though. Read Hone's Every-day Book, and with a better opinion of him than I expected from his anti-religious frenzy. We are to ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... it? Och hone, och hone, machree!" exclaims the venerable woman, hanging desolately around the tree by her arms while her bonnet falls over her left ear: "I've heard that ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various

... me that the first of these was done. "I want you very much to come and dine to-day that we may repair to Drury-lane together; and let us say half-past four, or there is no time to be comfortable. I am going out to Tottenham this morning, on a cheerless mission I would willingly have avoided. Hone, of the Every Day Book, is dying; and sent Cruikshank yesterday to beg me to go and see him, as, having read no books but mine of late, he wanted to see and shake hands with me before (as George said) 'he ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... it to-night when I'm asleep.—And so young, and so beautiful, too. Och hone!" murmured the old woman, as she unlocked the door, and with tremulous gait quitted ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... to make divarsion of me. By this time it was growing dark, and as there was no time to lose, I started in a second time, determined to keep straight south this time and no mistake. I got on bravely for awhile, but och hone! och hone! it got so dark I couldn't see the trees, and I bumped me nose and barked me shins, while the miskaties bit me hands and face to a blister; and after tumblin' and stumblin' around till I was fairly bamfoozled, I sat down on a log, all of a trimble, to think that was lost ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard

... of some forty cows and has a milk route at Lynn. J.W. Blodgett keeps twenty-five cows, and takes his milk to market. Geo. N. Miller and T.O.W. Houghton also keep cows and have a route. Joshua Kingsbury, George H. Pearson and George Ames have a route, buying their milk. Byron Hone keeps fifty cows. Dudley Fiske has twenty-five, selling their milk. O.M. Hitchings, H. Burns, A.B. Davis, Lewis Austin, Richard Hawkes and others keep from seven to twelve cows ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various

... firmly their churches and to give them the strength and dignity of a strongly united body. The Heads of Agreement were drafted by three men, Increase Mather, the Massachusetts colonial agent to England, Matthew Mead, a Congregationalist, and John Hone, a Presbyterian, who in his earlier years and by training was a Congregationalist. Naturally, between the influence of the framers and the necessity for including the two religious bodies, this platform inclined towards ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... stand. The works of Mr. Cradock have, since his decease, been published by Mr. J. B. Nichols, in 4 vols. 8vo. They contain his Essay on Gardening and Village Memoirs. They are enriched by a miniature portrait of him, by Hone, in 1764, when Mr. Cradock was in his prime of life, in his twenty-second year, and when his piercing eyes and intelligent countenance, were thought to have resembled those of Mr. Garrick. There is also a profile shade of Mr. ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton

... for one not college larnt; and I'll tell you how it is"—and thereupon Uncle Jaw launched forth into the case of the medder land and the mill, and concluded with, "Now, Joseph, this 'ere is a kinder whetstone for you to hone ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... looked upon as direct descendants of that modest single octavo volume of 1808. During his later years Lamb devised something in the nature of a supplement when he prepared further extracts from the Garrick collection of plays in the British Museum for Hone's "Table Book" (1827), and these extracts are now generally bound up with the earlier ones in a ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold



Words linked to "Hone" :   optimise, round, better, set, optimize, improve, sharpen, brush up, whetstone, round off, polish up, meliorate, polish, ameliorate, amend, perfect



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