'Bone-idle' - what is the origin of the meaning?

Solution 1:

The Oxford Dictionary of Word Origin says that the idea suggested by the expression bone idle is that of being idle all through to the bone.

Bone idle: (old-fashioned, British English, informal)

very lazy

• Word Origin: early 19th cent.: expressing idle through to the bone.

In A Glossary of Words Pertaining to the Dialect of Mid-Yorshire and Holderness, Issues 1-2 by C. Clough Robinson, they also suggest a possible origin from born idle:

Bone-idle, E. and N., adj. thoroughly lazy. There appears to be some doubt as to the origin of this word bone, whether it means idle even to the bones, or born idle; in the E. it would appear to refer to the former, as they have a saying “He is idle tiv his varray backbeean”, while in the Noth it is frequently used in the latter sense, i.e. constitutionally idle from birth, in the same way as it is said that Cap. Cook was a born sailor or Burns was a born poet.

An early citation of bone-idle is from “Fair Rosamond, or, The days of King Henry II: an historical romance” by Thomas Miller, 1839:

Marry i thou mayest work; — all these bone-idle fellows find thee out. But I should not matter it so much, an' they needed it ; but when I think of their tithes, and their orchards, and their cattle, and their fish-ponds, and the money they have paid for masses, ....