marrowbone

plural marrowbones

1. A bone containing edible marrow.First known use 14th c.

   And thy skull and thy marrow-bones will I have away to Carcë, to my palace, to be a token unto all the world that I have been the bane of an hundredth great champion by my wrastling, and thou not least among them that I have slain in that exercise.

   1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros: A Romance, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, page 21

2. humorousin pluralThe shins or knees, chiefly in references to kneeling.First known use 16th c.

   They would all to a man have gone down on their marrowbones to him.

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC

   2 more examples

   Upon this condescension, the culprit was called up stairs^([sic]), and made acquainted with the mitigation of his fate; upon which he said, he would down on his marrow-bones to his own master, but would be damn'd before he would ask pardon of e'er a Frenchman in Christendom.

   1751, [Tobias] Smollett, chapter 56, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume II, London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC

   So the news of the split between the old and the young one caused plenty of conversation, you may be sure; and will Mr. Robert go down on his marrowbones? and what has he done? was all the question.

   1861, Eneas Sweetland Dallas, Once a Week, volume 4, page 246