marrow

See also: Marrow

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English mary, marow, marwe, marowȝ, from Old English mearg, from Proto-West Germanic *maʀg, from Proto-Germanic *mazgą, *mazgaz, from Proto-Indo-European *mosgʰos. Compare West Frisian moarch, Dutch merg, German Mark, Swedish märg, Icelandic mergur, and also Russian мозг (mozg, “brain”), Polish mózg (“brain”), Persian مغز (mağz, “brain”).

Pronunciation

Noun

marrow (countable and uncountable, plural marrows)

Transected beef bones, exposing the marrow inside
Vegetable marrows
  1. (uncountable) The substance inside bones which produces blood cells.
    • 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter III, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915, →OCLC:
      Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.
    • 2004, “Eaten”, performed by Bloodbath:
      Chop me up, I like to be hurt / Drink my marrow and blood for dessert
  2. A kind of vegetable like a large courgette/zucchini or squash.
    • 1847, Sir Robert Hermann Schomburgk, “Steam-Boat Voyage to Barbados”, in Bentley's Miscellany, volume XXII, London: Richard Bentley, page 37:
      The finest European vegetables, cabbages, cauliflowers, potatoes, vegetable marrow, were lying in the market-hall, awaiting purchasers.
  3. The pith of certain plants.
  4. The essence; the best part.
  5. Inner meaning or purpose.
  6. (medicine, colloquial, countable) Bone marrow biopsy.
    This patient will have a marrow today.
  7. (obsolete) (uncountable) Semen.
Synonyms
Derived terms


Translations
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See also

Etymology 2

From Old Norse margr.

Alternative forms

Noun

marrow (plural marrows)

  1. (Geordie, informal) A friend, pal, buddy, mate.
    Cheers marrow!
  2. (mining, slang, obsolete) A miner's mate or assistant.
    • 1855, Mining Magazine, page 519:
      A 'getter' or miner is paid 1½ to 2 cents per hundred weight of Coals excavated, […] but out of this sum, his "marrows" or assistants who do the business of 'putting' and 'hurrying' for him must be paid […]
  3. (Scotland or archaic) One of a pair; a match; a companion; an intimate associate.
    • c. 1620, anonymous, “Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song” in Giles Earle his Booke (British Museum, Additional MSS. 24, 665):
      The moon’s my constant Mistresse / & the lowlie owle my morrowe. / The flaming Drake and yͤ Nightcrowe make / mee musicke to my sorrowe.
    • [1917, John Buchan, “[Theocritus in Scots.] The Kirn (Idyll vii).”, in Poems: Scots and English (in Scots), London; Edinburgh: T. C. & E. C. Jack, →OCLC, book I (Scots), page 38:
      The dreichest saul could see he had sunlicht in his ee, / And there's no his marrow left in the toun.
      The most cheerless soul could see he had sunlight in his eye, / And there's none his equal left in the town.]
Derived terms

References
  • A Dictionary of North East Dialect, Bill Griffiths, 2005, Northumbria University Press, →ISBN
  • Northumberland Words, English Dialect Society, R. Oliver Heslop, 1893–4
  • A List of words and phrases in everyday use by the natives of Hetton-le-Hole in the County of Durham, F.M.T.Palgrave, English Dialect Society vol.74, 1896,
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