chine

See also: Chine and chiné

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tʃaɪn/

  • Audio (UK)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪn

Etymology 1

From Middle English chyne, from Old French eschine, from Frankish *skina, from Proto-Germanic *skinō. Doublet of shin.

Alternative forms

• chimb, chime

Noun

chine (plural chines)

1. The top of a ridge.
2. The spine of an animal.
   • 1717, John Dryden [et al.], “(please specify |book=I to XV)”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], OCLC 731548838:

     And chine with rising bristles roughly spread.

   • 1883: Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

     […] the captain aimed at the fugitive one last tremendous cut, which would certainly have split him to the chine had it not been intercepted by our big signboard […]

   • 1942, George Rawlinson, transl., “Erato”, in The Persian Wars‎^[1], translation of original by Herodotus:

     The prerogatives which the Spartans have allowed their kings are the following. In the first place, two priesthoods, those (namely) of Lacedaemonian and of Celestial Jupiter; […] and of having a hundred picked men for their body guard while with the army; likewise the liberty of sacrificing as many cattle in their expeditions as it seems them good, and the right of having the skins and the chines of the slaughtered animals for their own use.

3. A piece of the backbone of an animal, with the adjoining parts, cut for cooking.
4. (nautical) A sharp angle in the cross section of a hull.
5. (nautical) A hollowed or bevelled channel in the waterway of a ship's deck.
6. The edge or rim of a cask, etc., formed by the projecting ends of the staves; the chamfered end of a stave.
7. The back of the blade on a scythe.

Translations

top of a ridge

• Bulgarian: било (bg) (bilo), хребет (bg) (hrebet)
• Finnish: harja (fi), harjanne (fi)
• Hungarian: gerinc (hu)

• Russian: хребе́т (ru) m (xrebét)
• Swedish: krön (sv)

spine of an animal

• Bulgarian: гръбнак (grǎbnak)
• Finnish: selkäranka (fi), ruoto (fi)

• Hungarian: gerinc (hu)

angle in the hull

• Finnish: palle
• German: Kimm (de) f

• Hungarian: gerinc (hu)

Verb

chine (third-person singular simple present chines, present participle chining, simple past and past participle chined)

1. (transitive) To cut through the backbone of; to cut into chine pieces.
2. To chamfer the ends of a stave and form the chine.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for chine in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

Etymology 2

From Middle English chyne, chynne (“crack, fissure, chasm”), from Old English ċine, ċinu, from Proto-Germanic *kinō.

Noun

chine (plural chines)

1. (Southern England) A steep-sided ravine leading from the top of a cliff down to the sea.
   • 1885, Jean Ingelow, A Cottage in a Chine

     The cottage in a chine, we were not to behold it.

   • 1988, Alan Hollinghurst, The Swimming Pool Library, Penguin Books (1988), page 169

     In the odorous stillness of the day I thought of the tracks that threaded Egdon Heath, and of benign, elderly Sandbourne, with its chines and sheltered beach-huts.

Related terms

• chine
• chink

Etymology 3

From Middle English chīnen (“to crack, fissure, split”), from Old English ċīnan (“to break into pieces, burst, crack”), from Proto-Germanic *kīnaną (“to split; crack; germinate; sprout”).

Verb

chine (third-person singular simple present chines, present participle chining, simple past and past participle chined)

1. (obsolete) To crack, split, fissure, break. [9th-16th c.]

   The wayward son did chine his father's heart.

   A drought had caused the earth to chine and cranny.

   • 1508, John Fisher, Treatise concernynge ... the seven penytencyall Psalms

     After the erth be brent, chyned & chypped by the hete of the sonne.

Related terms

• chine

References

• An historical dictionary

Anagrams

• Chien, niche

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French

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -in

Verb

chine

1. first-person singular present indicative of chiner
2. third-person singular present indicative of chiner
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of chiner
4. third-person singular present subjunctive of chiner
5. second-person singular imperative of chiner

Anagrams

• chien, niche, niché

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Irish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈçɪnʲə]

Noun

chine m

1. Lenited form of cine.

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Italian

Adjective

chine

1. feminine plural of chino

Noun

chine f pl

1. plural of china

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Middle English

Etymology 1

Noun

chine

1. Alternative form of chyne (“crack”)

Etymology 2

Noun

chine

1. Alternative form of chyne (“spine”)

Etymology 3

Verb

chine

1. Alternative form of chynen