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Glite Dictionary
cannon bone

cannon bone

1 8.6
A strong lower leg bone in animals with hooves, especially horses
  • noun
  • /ˈkænən boʊn/
  • Specialized
translation icon : hueso cañón
  • The veterinarian examined the horse's injured cannon bone to assess the damage.

Examples

  • To treat the cannon bone injury, the trainer decided to give the horse plenty of rest.

  • He had snapped his cannon bone.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • After the fall, the rider noticed that the horse was limping due to a fracture in its cannon bone.

Synonyms

cannon
vscannon bone
  • Specialized
4 9.8

The strong lower leg bone in hoofed animals between the knee and ankle

is the specific developed metacarpal or metatarsal bone rather than the whole lower leg

Surface Forms

cannon bone singular
cannon bones plural
cannonbones plural
cannonbone singular

Morphology

cannon + bone

Given the constituent meanings, the compound simply names a specific type of bone: 'cannon' (a particular metacarpal/metatarsal) + 'bone' (skeletal tissue). This is a straightforward noun–noun composition whose overall meaning is directly derived from its parts and would be understandable to a learner who knows both constituents.

Etymology

The noun cannon bone may come from a simple image: the long, straight lower leg bone of a horse looked like a short, strong 'cannon' barrel, so people began calling that tough bone the cannon. That's why cannon bone today means the main lower leg bone that carries most of a hoofed animal's weight.