chine

plural chines · alternative chimb · alternative chime

1. The top of a ridge.
2. The spine of an animal.

   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, […], →OCLC

   3 more examples

   […] 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, →OCLC

   To secure them [killed hogs] against the possibility of spoiling, salt them before they get cold; take out the chine or back-bone from the neck to the tail, cut the hams, shoulders and middlings; take the ribs from the shoulders and the leaf fat from the hams:

   1836, Mary Randolph, The Virginia Housewife: or, Methodical Cook, Pork

   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

3. A piece of the backbone of an animal, with the adjoining parts, cut for cooking.

   The chine and spareribs, which correspond to the loin in lamb and veal, are used for roasts or steaks. Two ribs are left on the chine. The hind legs furnish hams. These are cured, salted, and smoked.

   1918, Fannie Farmer, The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book

   1 more example

   Between these dishes and the turkeys, stood, on the one side, a prodigious chine of roasted bear's meat, and on the other a boiled leg of delicious mutton. Interspersed among this load of meats, was every species of vegetables that the season and country afforded.

   1823, [James Fenimore Cooper], chapter IX, in The Pioneers, or The Sources of the Susquehanna; […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), New York, N.Y.: Charles Wiley; […], →OCLC

4. The back of the blade on a scythe.

present singular third person chines · participle present chining · participle past chined · past chined · alternative chimb · alternative chime

1. transitiveTo cut through the backbone of (an animal, to prepare it as meat); to cut into chine pieces.

   the grandmother of sows, gruffly grunting right and left with muzzle which no ring may tame (not being matrimonial), hulks across between the two, moving all each side at once, and then all of the other side as if she were chined down the middle, and afraid of spilling the salt from her

   1869, R[ichard] D[oddridge] Blackmore, Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Sampson Low, Son, & Marston, […], →OCLC

2. transitiveTo chamfer the ends of a stave and form the chine.

plural chines

1. Southern EnglandVancouverA steep-sided ravine leading from the top of a cliff down to the sea.

   Boscombe Chine

   3 more examples

   Shanklin Chine

   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, →ISBN, page 169

present singular third person chines · participle present chining · participle past chined · past chined

1. obsoleteTo crack, split, fissure, break.First known use 9th–16th c.

   The wayward son did chine his father's heart.

   2 more examples

   A drought had caused the earth to chine and cranny.

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

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

plural chines

1. The edge or rim of a cask, etc., formed by the projecting ends of the staves; the chamfered end of a stave.

   It had been placed behind some barrels, and what with the rum, what with a long spell of laziness, Willy was unable to shift them. Joe came to his assistance, canted the casks, and rolled them away upon their chines.

   1913, (Please provide the book title or journal name)

2. nauticalA hollowed or bevelled channel in the waterway of a ship's deck.
3. nauticalA sharp angle in the cross section of a hull.
4. aeronauticsA longitudinal line of sharp change in the cross-section profile of the fuselage or similar body.