fish bone, n. 1. A record of attention paid to what was eaten together. 2. The part of the meal that refuses to become memory. 3. (Archit.) The herringbone pattern in old brickwork, laid by someone who understood that support structures are diagonal, never straight. 4. What remains on the plate after the conversation has moved to the desk, the calendar, the weeks ahead. 5. (Obs.) A needle for mending nets. See also: the thing too small to throw away and too sharp to hold.