T-bone (n.)

Middle English bon, from Old English ban "bone, tusk, hard animal tissue forming the substance of the skeleton; one of the parts which make up the skeleton," from Proto-Germanic *bainan (source also of Old Frisian and Old Saxon ben, Old Norse bein, Danish ben, German Bein). Absent in Gothic, with no cognates outside Germanic (the common PIE root is *ost-); the Norse, Dutch, and German cognates also mean "shank of the leg," and this is the main meaning in Modern German, but English seems never to have had this sense.

To work (one's) fingers to the bone is from 1809. To have a bone to pick (1560s) is an image of a dog struggling to crack or gnaw a bone (to pick a bone "strip a bone by picking or gnawing" is attested from late 15c.); to be a bone of contention (1560s) is of two dogs fighting over a bone; the images seem to have become somewhat merged. Also compare bones.

Bone-china, which is mixed with bone-dust, is so called by 1854. Bone-shaker (1874) was an old name for the early type of bicycle, before rubber tires.

twentieth letter of the English alphabet; in the Phoenician alphabet the corresponding sign was the 22nd and last; all beyond T in the modern alphabet represents European alterations or additions. The sound has been consistent throughout its history. The letter formerly was branded on the hand of a convicted thief. Also compare th.

In Late Latin and Old French, -t- before -e- and -i- acquired the "s" value of -c- and words appeared in both spellings (nationem/nacionem) and often passed into Middle English with a -c- (nacioun). In most of these the spelling was restored to a -t- by or during early Modern English. Edmund Coote's "English Schoole-maister" (1596) still has malicious/malitious; and a few words well-established in the old spelling (space, place, coercion, suspicion) resisted restoration.

The pronunciation shift in -tu- words in southern English, to "-shu-" (nature, actually), was noticed by c. 1900.

To cross one's t's (and dot one's i's) "be exact" is attested from 1849. Phrase to a T "exactly, with utmost exactness" is recorded from 1690s, though the exact signification remains uncertain despite much speculation. The measuring tool called a T-square (sometimes suggested as the source of this) is recorded by that name only from 1785.

In medicine, the T-cell (1970) is so called because the cells are derived from the thymus. As a medieval numeral, T represented 160.