fin
/fɪn/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.70 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A similar appendage of a cetacean or other marine animal.
noun
A thin, rigid component of an aircraft, extending from the fuselage and used to stabilise and steer the aircraft.
noun
A similar structure protruding from a projectile, used to help keep it on course.
Example Sentences
- "The fish's fins minimize water flow."
- "Then he commenced to talk, really talk. and inside of two flaps of a herring's fin he had me mesmerized, like Eben Holt's boy at the town hall show. He talked about the ills of humanity, and the glories of health and Nature and service and land knows what all."
- "a dolphin's fin"
- "The fin stabilises the plane in flight."
- "The divers wore fins to swim faster."
- ""Done say I to that, Reuben, tip me your fin, my spark, and it shall be a bet.""
Etymology
From Middle English fin, from Old English finn, from Proto-Germanic *finnō, *finǭ (“dorsal fin”) (compare Dutch vin, German Finne, Swedish finne, fena), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pīn- (“backbone, dorsal fin”) (compare Old Irish ind (“end, point”), Latin pinna (“feather, wing, fin”), Tocharian A spin (“hook”).
Usage
- British usage
- Obsolete
- Slang
- Transitive verb
- Intransitive verb
- American usage
- Dated
- Archaic