whirl-bone
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.95 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
2
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
Etymology
From Middle English whirlebon, whyrlebone, whorlbane (“hip or hip joint; the thighbone, femur; the rounded head of the femur; the kneecap, patella; a vertebra; ankle”), perhaps an alteration of Old English hweorfbān (“a joint, kneecap, vertebra”), equivalent to whirl + bone. Cognate with Scots whorlebone, whorle-bane (“hip bone, joint, vertebra”), German Wirbelbein (“vertebra”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: whirlebon, hweorfbān