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View synonyms for bone up

bone up

verb

  1. informal.
    adverb; when intr, usually foll by on to study intensively
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Idioms and Phrases

Study intensely, as in I'll have to bone up on my Spanish if I'm to pass the language requirement . The verb bone alone was used in this sense from the mid-1800s on, up being added later. [ Slang ; late 1800s]
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Example Sentences

How did so many bones up and vanish?

It doesn’t require boning up, unlike a complex ballot proposition.

That means he’s had 37 years — half his life — to bone up on the issues.

Per the film, this is a natural consequence of not boning up on your “Emily Post.”

From Salon

Della Donna started boning up on criminal law, talking to every criminal attorney she could find and eventually turning to UCI Law School.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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