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Glite Dictionary
🎯 To improve 🔪 To sharpen 🪨 A sharpening tool
to hone

to hone

8 5.5
To make a blade or tool sharp using a fine stone
  • verb
  • /hoʊn/
translation icon : afilar
  • ANGLE ON: LUMPY is standing quietly honing a knife with a whetstone.
  • honed skills
  • well-honed

But you look at their lives and those elements are there and they're sharpened and they're honed.

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Examples

  • My responsibility as an as an artist is something that I have honed over time.

  • Nuke smirked and used the finely honed blade to slice through the paper seal.

  • "Well, you know, it would be a smart idea to hone your craft and get a good skill developed."

    Fiction book (1992)

  • As I started to hone my skills, things started to get even weirder.

  • I'm just honing the edge a little.

    The Boost (1988)

  • Many futurists have well-honed skills at finding paths from the present to the desired future.

    Academic text (2012)

  • The apartment thing is utilizing all the, the skills that I've honed for years, sales, negotiating, closing.

  • And as we've kind of grown and matured and found ourselves, we have kind of honed our skills to what we think we like for today.

  • Logan had been hunched in a corner, honing his blade, when the stranger approached.

Synonyms

to sharpen
vsto hone
35 2.1

To make the edge or tip of something thin and able to cut, like a knife

uses a fine stone to create a precise more effective edge
to set
vsto hone
2 8.4

To give a sharp edge to a knife or razor

applies more broadly and uses a fine stone for precision
to whet
vsto hone
1 8.8

To make a blade or tool sharper by rubbing it on a stone

focuses on using a fine tool for a careful precise edge

Antonyms

to dull
33 3.4

Cause something to become less sharp, strong or bright

to blunt
21 4.2

To make a feeling or pain less strong

How Sharp

to hone
8 5.5
to sharpen
35 2.1
to blunt
21 4.2

Surface Forms

hone infinitive
honed past
honed past participle
honing present participle
hones third person singular

Etymology

As a verb for tools, hone comes from the name for a sharpening 'stone' and originally meant to rub a blade on that stone to make its edge very sharp. That's why to hone a knife is to sharpen it to a fine edge.