sawbones
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of sawbones
First recorded in 1830–40; saw 1 + bone + -s 3 ( def. )
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“Put the sawbones like me out of business.”
From The New Yorker • Aug. 20, 2012
Robert Morley and Alastair Sim bear small resemblance to the characters Shaw had in mind, but in company with John Robinson and Felix Aylmer they make a ludicrously Aristophanic chorus of sawbones.
From Time Magazine Archive
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Small wonder that they have been dubbed "sawbones," or that they have always hated the unpleasant word.
From Time Magazine Archive
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What pricked him on from apprenticeship under a toping village sawbones to postgraduate work at the State of Winnemac's great Sears-Roebuckian university was an itching to learn, to know, to do.
From Time Magazine Archive
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That any whipper-snapper of a sawbones should tell me to go to my room.
From The Green Rust by Wallace, Edgar
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.