Obs. Forms; 4–7 canel-, 5 canelle-, 5–7 cannell-, 6 cainell-, 6–7 canell-, 7 canal-, kannell-, cannel-. [f. canel, kanel, kenel ‘neck’; see CANNEL sb.1 5, and CHANNEL sb., whence also the form CHANNEL-BONE.]
1. The ‘neck-bone’: perh. properly the cervical vertebræ, which form the medullary canal. (But it is not easy to know in what sense early writers used it. Quotations c. 1420, 1593, may belong to sense 2; and the Dict. explanations of 17–18th c. are of uncertain authority.)
c. 1369. Chaucer, Dethe Blaunche, 943. Hyt [her neck] was white smothe streght, and pure fatte Wythouten hole or canel-boon.
c. 1420. Anturs Arth., xl. 12. The squrd squappes in toe His canel-bone allsoe, And cleuet his schild clene.
1557. K. Arthur (Copland), IV. xxviii. His swerd kerued him unto his canell boone.
1593. Golding, Ovid’s Met., 284. [He] thrust him through the place in which the necke and shoulders joine, He groand, and from his cannell-bone could scarcely pull the stake.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Cannel bone, the Neck or Throat-bone.
1664. Evelyn, trans. Freart’s Archit., 149. The cannel bone of the Throat.
1678–96. Phillips, Cannel-bone, the neck-bone or wind-pipe.
1721. Bailey, Canel-bone, the Neck or Throat Bone, so named, because of its resembling a Canal.
2. The collar-bone or clavicle.
c. 1420. [see prec.].
c. 1470. Henry, Wallace, V. 823. Baith cannell bayne [1st ed. 1570 collar-bane] and schuldir blaid in twa, Throuch the mid cost, the gud suerd gart he ga.
1548. Patten, Exped. Scotl., E iij. (Jam.). The lorde hume … had a fall from his horse, and burst so the canell bone of his neck, that he was fayn to be caryed straight to Edenborowe.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 409. His cannell bone was broken which knitteth the two shoulders together in the forepart.
1611. Cotgr., Clavicules, the kannell bones, channell bones, necke-bones, craw-bones; extending (on each side one) from the bottome of the throat vnto the top of the shoulder.
1656. Dugard, Gate Lat. Unl., § 219. 61. The two Shoulder-blades (which the Cannel-bones, called in birds, furculæ, that is little forks, couple to the Chest).
3. ? The haunch-bone or ilium of an animal.
c. 1460. J. Russell, Bk. Nurture, in Babees Bk. (1868), 145. Betwene þe hyndur leggis [of þe cony] breke þe canelle boone.
1610. Markham, Masterp., II. clvii. 463. The vpper thigh bone goeth into the pot of the Cannel-bone.
