Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A fine-grained whetstone for giving a keen edge to a cutting tool.
- n. A tool with a rotating abrasive tip for enlarging holes to precise dimensions.
- v. To sharpen on a fine-grained whetstone.
- v. To perfect or make more intense or effective: a speaker who honed her delivery by long practice.
- hone in To move or advance toward a target or goal: The missiles honed in on the military installation.
- hone in To direct one's attention; focus: The lawyer honed in on the gist of the plaintiff's testimony.
- v. Informal To whine or moan.
- v. Informal To hanker; yearn.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A stone used for sharpening instruments that require a delicate edge, and particularly for sharpening razors; an oilstone. A hone differs from a whetstone in being of finer grit and more compact texture. See honestone.
- n. A thin piece of dry and stale bread; also, an oil-cake.
- To rub and sharpen on or as on a hone: as, to hone a razor.
- To linger; delay.
- n. Delay; lingering.
- To pine; long; yearn; moan.
- To long for; crave.
- n. A kind of swelling in the cheek.
- n. A circular barrow or hill.
- A dialectal contraction of hosen, plural of hose.
- See och hone.
Wiktionary
- n. A sharpening stone composed of extra-fine grit used for removing the burr or curl from the blade of a razor or some other edge tool.
- n. A machine tool used in the manufacture of precision bores.
- v. To sharpen with a hone.
- v. To use a hone to produce a precision bore.
- v. To refine or master (a skill).
- v. To make more acute, intense, or effective.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To grumble; pine; lament; long.
- n. A kind of swelling in the cheek.
- n. A stone of a fine grit, or a slab, as of metal, covered with an abrading substance or powder, used for sharpening cutting instruments, and especially for setting razors; an oilstone.
- v. To sharpen on, or with, a hone; to rub on a hone in order to sharpen.
- v. to render more precise or more effective.
WordNet 3.0
- v. sharpen with a hone
- n. a whetstone made of fine gritstone; used for sharpening razors
- v. make perfect or complete
Etymologies
- Middle English, from Old English hān, stone; see kō- in Indo-European roots. Hone in, alteration of home in.Obsolete French hoigner, from Old French, perhaps from hon, cry of discontent.
Examples
“Mays, I use the word hone, Mays practiced being Mays.”
“Sunnen has launched the HTA actuator hone, which is said to be ideal for cylinder surfacing and engineered for production of gas-meter tubes as well as light-duty metal removal applications.”
“(In the past, he's also offered fish such as sayori, needlefish, and hamo, daggertooth conger pike, an eel-like summer-season thing so bony that no one could figure out how to eat it until the people of Kyoto devised a special technique called hone-giri, to which Takayama-san has added variations of his own.)”
“For a guy who loves baseball and has loved it his whole life, this is a dream opportunity for me, to kind of hone in on a franchise and build it the way I see fit.”
“I 'hone' my skills with flower purchases at the supermarket or farmer's market and torture my husband by carving up my purchases in our sink.”
“And what comes out of my head, we write down and I kind of hone into a bit.”
“Up towards the Great Lakes, a cold air at the surface, it's snow but closer to the Gulf Coast and into portions of the Ohio Valley, it's mainly a rain even, but let's really kind of hone in on what you have at the great lakes.”
“So, he's got to, you know, kind of hone things in a little more.”
“And then I went to Georgetown in the history program to get a master ` s in the early 1980s in American history to kind of hone what I thought were the necessary analytical skills to write American history.”
Grant and Twain: The Story of a Friendship That Changed America
“You know, they'll kind of hone in on this person fairly quickly, I think.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘hone’.
-
GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
-
jaydrox's list
Mah list!
mediocracy, captivatingly, devastatingly, dazedly, heavenly, flawless, copious, conviction, synoptic, amalgamation, prefatory, precursory and 150 more...

larry_kunz Many authorities consider "hone in" to be incorrect usage. I know I do. My preference is "home in." Oct 26, 2010
yarb ...the bereaved Parnassian
hones a canine tooth,
sharpens a pencil.
- Peter Reading, Minima, from Diplopic, 1983 Jun 30, 2008