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Glite Dictionary
tailbone

tailbone

7 3.1
A small bone at the base of the spine that you sit on
  • noun
  • /ˈteɪlˌboʊn/
translation icon : cóccix
  • When you bring your attention to your tailbone, it brings you back to your body.
  • broke her tailbone
  • bruised tailbone
  • tucking your tailbone

When I was pregnant with our first kid because I'd broken my tailbone twice at that point and it had healed.

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Examples

  • Besides, my tailbone's hurting from all the driving we've been doing.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • Why do we humans carry vestigial tailbones inside our bodies?

    Academic text (2002)

  • Let your tailbone be heavy.

    Here Comes the Boom (2012)

  • I'm bringing the knees down and I am trying to keep my tailbone on the ground.

  • You're going to bring your hands underneath your tailbone to start.

  • Protect your tailbone.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • John-John tumbled down the stairs, landing on his tailbone.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • You've got a hairline fracture in your tailbone.

    Church Ball (2006)

  • My legs and hips were killing me, and with every step, white-hot needles stabbed into my tailbone.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • I fell off my bike and landed hard on my tailbone, causing a lot of pain.

Synonyms

coccyx
vstailbone
  • Specialized
7 8.9

A small triangular bone at the base of the spine called the tailbone

is the common everyday term rather than the precise anatomical name
tail bone
vstailbone
  • Specialized
3.6

The small bone at the very end of the spine

is the single word scientific name used in anatomy

Surface Forms

tailbone singular
tailbones plural

Morphology

tailbone = tail + bone (transparent) = tail + bone

A straightforward compound 'tail' + 'bone' whose meaning (a bone at the tail end of the spine) is directly inferable from its parts.

Etymology

The word tailbone comes from the simple parts tail and bone, because this small bone sits at the end of the spine like a little 'tail'. That's why tailbone is the common name for the small bone at the base of the spine. The same bone is also called coccyx, from a Greek word for 'cuckoo' because people thought it looked like a bird's beak.