boneyard

noun

ˈbōn-ˌyärd How to pronounce boneyard (audio)
Definition of boneyardnext
as in cemetery
a piece of land used for burying the dead a once-notorious gunslinger who now lies in the forlorn boneyard of an Old West ghost town

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of boneyard Many fire engines are mothballed in city boneyards, and the department has lost nearly 50 more firefighters since the Palisades fire. — Teresa Liu, Daily News, 4 May 2026 Visitors can also participate in boneyard games, a dig site and the Dinos after Dark event. — Alyson Rodriguez, Dallas Morning News, 25 Feb. 2026 Without these organisms, which provide the corals with food and bestow their stunning colors, the reef becomes a boneyard. — Susan Casey, Travel + Leisure, 10 Jan. 2026 The state’s political boneyard has a number of Lake County candidates residing there. — Charles Selle, Chicago Tribune, 21 July 2025 See All Example Sentences for boneyard
Recent Examples of Synonyms for boneyard
  1. cemetery
  2. graveyard
Noun
  • This decline is often captured sentimentally in memoirs about the Jewish South of a bygone era or photographs of Jewish cemeteries in various states of disrepair.
    — Ashley Walters, The Conversation, 30 Sep. 2026
  • Historical and archaeological investigations showed the area overlapped with the site of the former Sacramento County Hospital cemetery, which operated from the 1880s to the 1920s, officials said.
    — Darrell Smith, Sacbee.com, 30 Sep. 2026
Definition of cemetery
Noun
  • Independent orbital tracking showed that these satellites subsequently both raised their orbits by a few hundred kilometers, a move typically associated with disposing of them into graveyard orbits above geostationary space.
    — Eric Berger, ArsTechnica, 2 Oct. 2026
  • The graves of Emma Joyce and her sister and brothers are clustered near one another at Peaceful Valley Cemetery, a hilltop graveyard that belongs to the Followers of Christ, a faith-healing sect with at least four churches in Idaho.
    — Audrey Dutton, ProPublica, 1 Oct. 2026
Definition of graveyard

Browse Nearby Words

bone (up)
boneyard
boneyards
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Cite this Entry

“Boneyard.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/boneyard. Accessed 10 Oct. 2026.

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