Improve, as one's skills

The answer

HONE

4 letters. See every clue for this answer on the HONE answer page.

Used 13 times across 9 distinct years; most recently in 2023; first recorded in 1999. It appears in 6 publications in the xd corpus. Frequency and last-seen figures come from the xd crossword corpus only.

Other clues for HONE

Every other clue in this collection answered by HONE, most used first.

• Sharpen - used 498 times, most recently in 2026
• Fine-tune - used 89 times, most recently in 2026
• Perfect - used 66 times, most recently in 2026
• Make sharper - used 52 times, most recently in 2026
• Sharpen, as skills - used 42 times, most recently in 2026
• Whet - used 36 times, most recently in 2023
• Give an edge to - used 35 times, most recently in 2026
• Put an edge on - used 34 times, most recently in 2026
• Refine - used 32 times, most recently in 2026
• Whetstone. - used 30 times, most recently in 2007
• Use a whetstone - used 23 times, most recently in 2011
• Improve, as skills - used 21 times, most recently in 2026
• Improve - used 19 times, most recently in 2025
• Give an edge - used 15 times, most recently in 2024
• Sharpen, as a knife - used 15 times, most recently in 2026
• Sharpen, as one's skills - used 14 times, most recently in 2024
• Improve, as a skill - used 13 times, most recently in 2023
• Use a strop - used 11 times, most recently in 2009
• Use a whetstone on - used 11 times, most recently in 2019
• Perfect, as a skill - used 10 times, most recently in 2025
• Refine, as a skill - used 10 times, most recently in 2026
• Strop - used 9 times, most recently in 2008
• Use a strop on - used 9 times, most recently in 2019
• Make perfect - used 8 times, most recently in 2006
• Make sharp - used 8 times, most recently in 2025
• Sharpen, as a skill - used 8 times, most recently in 2025
• Perfect over time - used 7 times, most recently in 2025
• Sharpen, as a razor - used 7 times, most recently in 2021
• Work on the edge - used 7 times, most recently in 2023
• Make more effective - used 6 times, most recently in 2019
• Put to the grindstone - used 6 times, most recently in 2018

Related clues

Clues in this collection of the same answer length that share a word with this clue, or match its answer pattern when no word is shared. Most used first.

• ___ one's time (wait) - BIDE, used 89 times
• Lose one's footing - SLIP, used 74 times
• Toot one's own horn - BRAG, used 65 times
• Twiddling one's thumbs - IDLE, used 63 times
• "This one's ___" - ONME, used 59 times
• Put one's foot down - STEP, used 57 times

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