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Bone of contention   /boʊn əv kəntˈɛnʃən/   Listen
noun
Bone  n.  
1.
(Anat.) The hard, calcified tissue of the skeleton of vertebrate animals, consisting very largely of calcium carbonate, calcium phosphate, and gelatine; as, blood and bone. Note: Even in the hardest parts of bone there are many minute cavities containing living matter and connected by minute canals, some of which connect with larger canals through which blood vessels ramify.
2.
One of the pieces or parts of an animal skeleton; as, a rib or a thigh bone; a bone of the arm or leg; also, any fragment of bony substance. (pl.) The frame or skeleton of the body.
3.
Anything made of bone, as a bobbin for weaving bone lace.
4.
pl. Two or four pieces of bone held between the fingers and struck together to make a kind of music.
5.
pl. Dice.
6.
Whalebone; hence, a piece of whalebone or of steel for a corset.
7.
Fig.: The framework of anything.
A bone of contention, a subject of contention or dispute.
A bone to pick, something to investigate, or to busy one's self about; a dispute to be settled (with some one).
Bone ash, the residue from calcined bones; used for making cupels, and for cleaning jewelry.
Bone black (Chem.), the black, carbonaceous substance into which bones are converted by calcination in close vessels; called also animal charcoal. It is used as a decolorizing material in filtering sirups, extracts, etc., and as a black pigment. See Ivory black, under Black.
Bone cave, a cave in which are found bones of extinct or recent animals, mingled sometimes with the works and bones of man.
Bone dust, ground or pulverized bones, used as a fertilizer.
Bone earth (Chem.), the earthy residuum after the calcination of bone, consisting chiefly of phosphate of calcium.
Bone lace, a lace made of linen thread, so called because woven with bobbins of bone.
Bone oil, an oil obtained by heating bones (as in the manufacture of bone black), and remarkable for containing the nitrogenous bases, pyridine and quinoline, and their derivatives; also called Dippel's oil.
Bone setter. Same as Bonesetter. See in the Vocabulary.
Bone shark (Zool.), the basking shark.
Bone spavin. See under Spavin.
Bone turquoise, fossil bone or tooth of a delicate blue color, sometimes used as an imitation of true turquoise.
Bone whale (Zool.), a right whale.
To be upon the bones of, to attack. (Obs.)
To make no bones, to make no scruple; not to hesitate. (Low)
To pick a bone with, to quarrel with, as dogs quarrel over a bone; to settle a disagreement. (Colloq.)





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Bone of contention" Quotes from Famous Books



... the king's offer opened the way back to the churches, and refusal to accept protracted the evil times. Thus the host of God was divided against itself; Judah against Israel, and Israel against Judah. Archbishop Sharp had boasted, that by the Indulgence he would throw a "bone of contention" among the Presbyterians. He ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... time while you can; sail in, an' catch a-holt of pleasure with both hands.' But my better part says, 'Take your pleasure in mutual enjoyments, Benjamin; fix your mind on book-learning and the elevating Arts of peace.' I am a bone of contention between Virtue and License, an' the Devil only knows which will ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... ventilation has always been a bone of contention in incubator discussions. With its little understood real importance, as shown in the previous section, and the greatly exaggerated popular notions of the importance of oxygen and imagined poisonous qualities of carbon dioxide, the confusion in the ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... French books between the sixteenth and the nineteenth century, of sentiment and seriousness with something very like humour. Hylas, the not exactly "comic man," but light-o'-love and inconstant shepherd, was rather a bone of contention among critics of the book's own century. But he certainly seasons it well; and there is one almost Shakespearean scene in which he is concerned—a scene which Benedick and Beatrice, who may have read it not so ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... was therefore observed, and—San Domingo is still a bone of contention, though not with Spain, for it is ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... so quarrelsome. Poor little Betsey; how cross Susan is to you! But you should not have taken it out, my dear, when I sent you to the drawer. You know I told you not to touch it, because Susan is so cross about it. I must hide it another time, Betsey. Poor Mary little thought it would be such a bone of contention when she gave it me to keep, only two hours before she died. Poor little soul! she could but just speak to be heard, and she said so prettily, 'Let sister Susan have my knife, mama, when I am dead and buried.' ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... collapse on hearing of the murder fitted in exactly with the theory taking shape in the detective's mind—that there were two implacable forces at war in New York that night, that Lady Hermione's marriage to Count Vassilan or the Frenchman provided the immediate bone of contention, and that the struggle had been complicated by a too literal interpretation of instructions ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... Pennsylvania brigade as they appeared in groups of two or three on the road in front. The colonel as he handed me over to his men ordered his troops to take what prisoners they could and to cease firing. The guns which we were forced to abandon were a bone of contention until they were secured by the enemy on the third day, at which time but one of the twenty-four ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... Another bone of contention was her preparation. She had been so accustomed to work in a room by herself at Abbey Close that she found the presence of others highly distracting. Though silence was enforced, the girls fluttered the leaves of their books, scratched with their ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil


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