From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishhonehone /həʊn $ hoʊn/ verb [transitive] 1 IMPROVEto improve your skill at doing something, especially when you are already very good at it He set about honing his skills as a draughtsman. finely honed (=extremely well-developed) intuition2 formalSHARP to make knives, swords etc sharp SYN sharpen→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
hone• So things were changed, honed down, made to appear not quite so militaristic.• It was during this period that Bush honed his diplomatic skills.• The student has to hone his skills to develop the power and speed to push the material past that limit.• Mark accepted this and used the waiting period to improve relationships and hone his skills.• It honed in on the prototypical shape that was behind all the degraded images.• An election could come at any time, and policies across the board were being honed in readiness.honing ... skills• It suited my wandering nature, my penchant for traversing the neighborhoods of San Francisco, honing my skills as a boulevardier.• I left for school before most kids were up, honing those high-achievement skills early.Origin hone (1800-1900) hone “stone for making things sharp” ((14-19 centuries)), from Old English hon “stone” 