as in cemeteries
a piece of land used for burying the dead
a once-notorious gunslinger who now lies in the forlorn boneyard of an Old West ghost town
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Recent Examples of boneyards
Many fire engines are mothballed in city boneyards, and the department has lost nearly 50 more firefighters since the Palisades fire.
—
Teresa Liu, Daily News, 4 May 2026
Teresa Liu, Daily News, 4 May 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for boneyards
Noun
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Online discussions frequently point to the area's complicated history, including the remains of roads, structures and cemeteries that were flooded when the reservoir was created in the 1950s.—
Zachary Bynum,
CBS News,
15 June 2026
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On its walls are commemorated more than 72,000 British soldiers still missing from the war cemeteries that dot the landscape of the Somme valley, 72,000 people whose bodies were never identified from the carnage.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
27 May 2026
Noun
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These graveyards form when whale carcasses fall to the sea floor, becoming a sustaining snack for nearby critters.—
Adithi Ramakrishnan,
Los Angeles Times,
14 June 2026
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Scientists who recently piloted a submersible to a remote spot in the southeastern Indian Ocean have identified one of the largest and deepest whale graveyards containing hundreds of fossils, including one representing a previously unknown species.—
Mindy Weisberger,
CNN Money,
12 June 2026
Cite this Entry
“Boneyards.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/boneyards. Accessed 22 Jun. 2026.
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