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plural chines
The top of a ridge. examples
The spine of an animal. quotations examples
And chine with rising bristles roughly spread.
1717, John Dryden [et al.], “(please specify |book=I to XV)”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […]
[…] 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 […]
1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London, Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883
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.
1942, “Erato”, in George Rawlinson, transl., The Persian Wars, translation of original by Herodotus
A piece of the backbone of an animal, with the adjoining parts, cut for cooking. examples
(nautical) A sharp angle in the cross section of a hull. examples
(aeronautics) A longitudinal line of sharp change in the cross-section profile of the fuselage or similar body. examples
(nautical) A hollowed or bevelled channel in the waterway of a ship's deck. examples
The edge or rim of a cask, etc., formed by the projecting ends of the staves; the chamfered end of a stave. examples
The back of the blade on a scythe. examples
third-person singular simple present chines, present participle chining, simple past and past participle chined
(transitive) To cut through the backbone of; to cut into chine pieces. examples
To chamfer the ends of a stave and form the chine. examples
(Southern England, Vancouver) A steep-sided ravine leading from the top of a cliff down to the sea. quotations examples
The cottage in a chine, we were not to behold it.
1885, Jean Ingelow, A Cottage in a Chine
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.
1988, Alan Hollinghurst, The Swimming-Pool Library, paperback edition, London: Penguin Books, page 169
(obsolete) To crack, split, fissure, break. quotations
After the erth be brent, chyned & chypped by the hete of the sonne.
1508, John Fisher, Treatise concernynge ... the seven penytencyall Psalms