Chine Definition

chīn

chined, chines, chining

noun

The backbone; spine.

Webster's New World

A cut of meat containing part of the backbone.

Webster's New World

A ridge of rock.

Webster's New World

The juncture of the bottom and either of the sides of a boat.

Webster's New World

A rocky ravine or deep fissure in a cliff.

Webster's New World

Synonyms:

verb

To cut along or across the backbone of (a carcass of meat)

Webster's New World

To chamfer the ends of a stave and form the chine.

Wiktionary

Origin of Chine

Middle English chin (“crack, fissure, chasm”), from Old English cine, cinu. The Old English term is cognate to Old Saxon kena, and is related to the Old English verb cīnan ("to grow in size, crack, split, gape"), from Proto Germanic *kīnaną ("to sprout, germinate, split open"), from Proto-Indo-European *geie ("to split open, to sprout").

From Wiktionary
Middle English from Old French eschine of Germanic origin skei- in Indo-European roots

From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
From Middle English chyne, from Middle French eschine.

From Wiktionary

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