chine
/t͡ʃaɪn/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 2.52 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A steep-sided ravine leading from the top of a cliff down to the sea.
Example Sentences
- "And chine with rising bristles roughly spread."
- "[…] 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 […]"
- "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."
- "The cottage in a chine, we were not to behold it."
- "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."
- "The wayward son did chine his father's heart."
Etymology
From Middle English chyne, from Old French eschine, from Frankish *skinu, from Proto-Germanic *skinō. Doublet of shin.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: chyne, eschine, *skinu, *skinō, ċine, *kinu