shinbone

The shinbone is the long bone at the front of your lower leg, between knee and ankle. The one with almost no flesh over it, which is why banging it hurts so much.

It is the everyday name for the tibia, and it is the second longest bone in the body. The plain word turns up wherever the anatomical one would be too formal — a footballer's shinbone, a cracked shinbone in a hospital corridor. The shin itself is the front of the lower leg, which is why shin pads exist and why to shin up a drainpipe means to climb it using your legs. Doctors write tibia; the rest of us say shinbone.