Dictionary Home » The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms » roll the bones

roll the bones

roll the bones idiom

Cast dice, especially in the game of craps, as in Let's go to the casino and roll the bones tonight. This slangy term was first recorded in 1897, but the noun bones has referred to dice since the late 1300s (Chaucer used it in The Pardoner's Tale).

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.