Boney or bony?
boney is an adjective meaning “Alternative spelling of bony”; bony is an adjective meaning “Resembling, having the appearance or consistence of, or relating to bone…”. Wiktionary gives them as spellings of the same word. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) bony is about 5.6 times as common as boney.
What is the difference between boney and bony?
| boney | bony | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective | adjective |
| Meaning | Alternative spelling of bony | Resembling, having the appearance or consistence of, or relating to bone; osseous Full of bones |
| Example | none recorded | That bony fellow could use a few hot dinners |
| Forms | bonier, boniest | bonier, boniest |
| Pronunciation | not recorded | /ˈbəʊni/ /ˈboʊni/ |
| In writing | about once in every 3 million words | 1.8 times per million words |
Sources: boney and bony in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of boney and bony
boney
- 1
Alternative spelling of bony
bony
- 1
Resembling, having the appearance or consistence of, or relating to bone; osseous
- 2
Full of bones
- 3
With little flesh; skinny, thin
That bony fellow could use a few hot dinners
- 4
Having prominent bones
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, boney or bony?
boney appears about once in every 3 million words; bony 1.8 times per million words.
boney about once in every 3 million wordsbony 1.8 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search boney vs bony?
“boney vs bony” is searched about 110 times a month on Google and 20 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“bony vs boney”, “boney or bony”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.