What does boneyard mean?
A boneyard is, literally, a place associated with bones or corpses — historically a colloquial term for a graveyard, charnel house, or morgue. In modern usage, however, the word most often describes a storage ground for discarded machines: wrecked automobiles, rusting locomotives, and, most famously, decommissioned aircraft. The term gained wide currency through the vast aircraft boneyards of the American Southwest, notably Davis–Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona, where thousands of retired military planes are preserved in the dry desert air. Figuratively, boneyard denotes any dumping ground for things deemed obsolete or finished, from defunct projects to forgotten careers. The word carries connotations of decay, abandonment, and the end of usefulness, yet it can also suggest preservation and waiting — many aircraft leave the boneyard to fly again. It is typically informal but widely understood on both sides of the Atlantic.
A graveyard or place where bones or dead bodies are kept.
"The monks interred the remains in the abbey's boneyard."
Older, chiefly British colloquial use.
A yard or area where disused vehicles, aircraft, or machinery are stored, dismantled, or scrapped.
"He found a replacement fender at a pickup truck boneyard outside Reno."
A figurative dumping ground for anything regarded as spent, obsolete, or abandoned.
"Retirement felt less like a reward than a boneyard for his ambitions."
Informal and metaphorical.
Standard plural. Often used when referring to multiple scrapyards or storage sites.
"The state is dotted with auto boneyards, each holding decades of discarded metal."
The 'elephants' graveyard' of legend is really an elephants' boneyard — and in aviation, the Arizona desert's aircraft boneyard holds thousands of retired planes baking under the sun.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of boneyard
Boneyard is a straightforward English compound of "bone," from Old English "bān" (of Germanic origin), and "yard," from Old English "geard" meaning an enclosure or plot of ground. The compound arose as a colloquial term for burial grounds and places where bones were stored, with recorded use dating back several centuries. Its modern extension to junkyards and aircraft storage areas developed in American English during the twentieth century.
Related word forms
How boneyard is actually used
Informal to neutral in register. In American usage it commonly refers to junkyards, scrapyards, and aircraft storage facilities; in older British usage it was a colloquial term for a cemetery or mortuary. The figurative sense connotes abandonment and decay.
Easily confused with boneyard
A graveyard is specifically a burial ground attached to a church or for graves generally, while a boneyard more broadly refers to any repository of bones or of discarded objects, and is often used figuratively.