Etymology

ridgebone

ridge·bone
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Today it means: The backbone or spine. Full definition →

Middle English rygge-bone ← Old English hryċġbān ← Proto-West Germanic *hruggjabain
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The story

  1. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*hrugjabainą“backbone”
  2. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*hruggjabain
  3. Old English · inherited fromhryċġbān“backbone; spine”
  4. Middle English · inherited fromrygge-bone
  5. English todayridgebone

From Middle English rygge-bone, rigbone, from Old English hryċġbān (“backbone; spine”), from Proto-West Germanic *hruggjabain, from Proto-Germanic *hrugjabainą (“backbone”); equivalent to ridge (“the back”) + bone.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.