cheville

See also: chevillé

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French cheville. Doublet of clavicle.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʃəˈviː/, /ʃəˈviːl/

Noun

cheville (plural chevilles)

1. (poetry) A word or phrase whose only function is to make a sentence metrically balanced.
   • 1905, Robert Louis Stevenson, The Art of Writing:

     The genius of prose rejects the cheville no less emphatically than the laws of verse; and the cheville, I should perhaps explain to some of my readers, is any meaningless or very watered phrase employed to strike a balance in the sound.

   • 1910, Patrick Weston Joyce, English as we speak it in Ireland, chapter 5:

     The practice of using chevilles was very common in old Irish poetry, and a bad practice it was; for many a good poem is quite spoiled by the constant and wearisome recurrence of these chevilles.

French

Etymology

Inherited from Old French cheville, from Vulgar Latin *cavicla, dissimilated and syncopated form of Classical Latin clāvicula, diminutive of clāvis (“key”). Doublet of clavicule, a borrowing.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʃə.vij/, (informal) /ʃfij/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

cheville f (plural chevilles)

1. ankle
2. dowel, peg
3. wall plug
4. (poetry) cheville

Derived terms

• arriver à la cheville
• avoir les chevilles qui enflent
• cheville ouvrière
• chevillette
• en cheville

Related terms

• clé

Further reading

• “cheville”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Old French

Alternative forms

• kevile (Northern)

Etymology

From Vulgar Latin *cāvicla < *cāvicula, from Classical Latin clāvicula, diminutive of clāvis (“key”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t͡ʃəˈvi.ʎə/

Noun

cheville oblique singular, f (oblique plural chevilles, nominative singular cheville, nominative plural chevilles)

1. ankle (anatomy)

Related terms

• clef

Descendants

• French: cheville
• Norman: g'vil'ye, gvil (Sark); quevîle (Continental Norman)