ridgebone

• ridge-bone

From Middle English rygge-bone, rigbone, from Old English hryċġbān, hryġċbān (“backbone; spine”), from Proto-Germanic *hrugjabainą (“backbone”), equivalent to ridge +‎ bone. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Räägebunke (“backbone”), West Frisian rêchbonke (“backbone”), Dutch ruggebeen (“backbone; spine”), German Low German Rüggbunk (“backbone; spine”), Danish rygben (“backbone”), Swedish ryggben (“backbone”), Icelandic hryggjarbein (“spinal bone”).

ridgebone (plural ridgebones)

1. (rare, anatomy, literally and figuratively) The backbone or spine.
   • Holland

     blood […] lying cluttered about the ridgebone

   • 1815, G. LLOYD (Riding Master, and SYMES (R.)), ‎R. SYMES, The Improved Art of Riding, Etc:

     Let your body be erect and straight, your ridgebone answering to that of the horse; so that his body and your's may appear but as one piece of mechanism.

   • 2005, Brock Brower, ‎Nancy Lawton, Blue Dog, Green River:

     And running zigzag down its back, you can see its squiggly ridgebone taking all the meanders you can see right down below. "That ridgebone is the river, I swear. Rising sun hits it dead the same way, only earlier, over the plateau.

   • 2013, Steve Vera, Drynn:

     […] ; a Drynnian ridgebone was made for combat, hunting, and tunneling rock. It was also a very good shield and with it, he parried the blow meant for his head.

   • 2015, Adele DeGirolamo, Stolen Child - In-Between: Book Two:

     “Voila, my little angry one,” Markus spoke, looking at the foreign piece of junk that had been yanked free without any further struggle, straight out of the ridgebone of his back.

• Big Red One, biogender