knucklebones

Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

  • noun (noun) A game with similarities to jacks and dice.
  • noun (noun) Slang for dice.

Examples

  • She wove our clothes, played knucklebones, snakes & ladders, lined up with other women at the well, walked home balancing the vase on her head as she balanced our family, the oikos.

    Greg Delanty, 'Parents,' The Atlantic, May 2012

  • I soon found him; he was playing knucklebones in the churchyard with some other boys.

    The Watch, by Ivan Turgenev

  • Here and there amid this enormous game of knucklebones there could be traced the imaginary ruins of medieval cities with forts and dungeons, pepper-box turrets, and machicolated towers.

    Robur the Conqueror, by Jules Verne

Note

This ancient game was originally played with the knucklebones - actually the ankle bone - of a sheep.