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PlainSpell

hone

/hoʊn/noun, verb, interjection

hone is a noun meaning “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” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled H-O-N-E and has one syllable, and it appears 1.5 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of hone is hones.

What does hone mean?

noun

  1. 1

    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.

  2. 2

    A machine tool used in the manufacture of precision bores.

  3. 3

    A kind of swelling in the cheek.

verb

  1. 1

    To sharpen with a hone; to whet.

  2. 2

    To use a hone to produce a precision bore.

  3. 3

    To refine (a skill especially) by learning.

  4. 4

    To make more acute, intense, or effective.

  5. 5

    UKUSTo grumble.

    Such tunges ſhuld be torne out by the harde rootes,

  6. 6

    UKUSTo pine, lament, or long.

interjection

  1. 1

    Synonym of alas Used to express sorrow, or grief

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce hone?

  • US /hoʊn/
  • UK /həʊn/

Hone has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-hone.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of hone

  • hones plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • honing participle, present
  • honed participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is hone?

Hone appears 1.5 times per million words in written English, the 23,253rd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Hone in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchpierre à aiguiser (sharpening stone), machine à roder (machine tool), aiguiser, affûter (to sharpen with a hone), perfectionner, affiner (to refine or master a skill)
GermanSchleifstein, Wetzstein (sharpening stone), honen, feinschleifen, ziehschleifen (to sharpen with a hone), ausfeilen (to refine or master a skill)
Portuguesemó, afiadeira (sharpening stone), amolar, afiar (to sharpen with a hone), esmerar, aperfeiçoar (to refine or master a skill)
Spanishasperón, afiladera, aguzadera, aguzadora, amoladera, muela (sharpening stone)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does hone come from?

From Middle English hon (“whetstone”), from Old English hān, from Proto-Germanic *hainō (compare Dutch heen, Norwegian hein), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱeh₃i- (“to sharpen”) (compare Ancient Greek κῶνος (kônos, “cone”), Persian سان (sân, “whetstone”)).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).