Other forms: honed, honing, hones
To hone is to sharpen a blade, or to refine a skill. Hone the edge, hone your skills, finely honed.
Strictly it means to finish an edge on a fine stone rather than to grind one, so honing refines what is already sharp. It is not the same as home in on, which means to close on a target, and the two are constantly confused in writing.
1verbhoneTo sharpen a blade, or to refine a skill.
“She spent years honing her skills as a pianist before her first concert.”
hone is a sharpening.
Old English han means a stone, from a Germanic root. A hone is the whetstone itself.
Proto-Indo-European
*ḱeh₃i- — to sharpen
Proto-Germanic
*hainō
Old English
hān
Middle English
hon — whetstone
English, today
hone
From Middle English hon (“whetstone”), from Old English hān, from Proto-Germanic hainō (compare Dutch heen, Norwegian hein), from Proto-Indo-European ḱeh₃i- (“to sharpen”) (compare Ancient Greek κῶνος (“cone”), Persian سان (“whetstone”)).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA