hinge

plural hinges

1. A jointed or flexible device that allows the pivoting of a door etc.

   The massy portals of the churches swung creaking on their hinges; and some lay dead on the pavement.

   1826, [Mary Shelley], chapter I, in The Last Man. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC

   Synonyms: har

2. A naturally occurring joint resembling such hardware in form or action, as in the shell of a bivalve.

   The pedicel of the pollinium is articulated as before by a hinge to the disc; it can move freely only in one direction owing to one end of the disc being upturned.

   1862, Charles Darwin, The Various Contrivances by Which Orchids Are Fertilized by Insects

3. A stamp hinge, a folded and gummed paper rectangle for affixing postage stamps in an album.
4. A principle, or a point in time, on which subsequent reasonings or events depend.

   This argument was the hinge on which the question turned.

   2 more examples

   But let me say, with all deference, that these positions do not appear to me to touch the hinge of the argument before us.

   1840, Adam Duncan Tait, Remarks on a Pamphlet by the Reverend James Buchanan, page 26

   These grown-up children were at that hinge of life when parents must begin to shrink and fold.

   2022, Ian McEwan, Lessons, page 388

5. mathematicsThe median of the upper or lower half of a batch, sample, or probability distribution.
6. One of the four cardinal points, east, west, north, or south.

   In ruine reconcil'd: nor slept the winds / Within thir stony caves, but rush'd abroad / From the four hinges of the world, and fell

   1671, John Milton, “The Fourth Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC, page 100

   1 more example

   If when the Moon is in the Hinge at East, / The Birth breaks forward from its native rest; / Full Eighty Years, if you two Years abate, / This Station gives, and long defers its Fate

   1697, Thomas Creech, The five books of Mr. Manilius containing a system of the ancient astronomy and astrology: together with the philosophy of the Stoicks, page 121

7. A movement that presents itself as rotation when an off-centre fixed point is taken into account.
8. In polyamory, a person connected emotionally or sexually to two others who are not connected to each other.

   Synonyms: swing

9. dialectalTo be in poor health; to be out of sorts.

present singular third person hinges · participle present hinging · participle present uncommon hingeing · participle past hinged · past hinged

1. transitiveTo attach by, or equip with a hinge.
2. intransitivewith on or uponTo depend on something.

   Games can hinge on the sort of controversial decision made by Taylor in the 10th minute. After Rivière collected Gabriel Obertan’s pass and sashayed beyond Daley Blind he drew the United centre-half into a rash, clumsy challenge but, puzzlingly, Taylor detected no penalty.

   2015 March 4, Louise Taylor, The Guardian

3. transitivearchaeologyThe breaking off of the distal end of a knapped stone flake whose presumed course across the face of the stone core was truncated prematurely, leaving not a feathered distal end but instead the scar of a nearly perpendicular break.

   The flake hinged at an inclusion in the core.

4. obsoleteTo bend.

   Be thou a Flatterer now, and ſeeke to thriue / By that which ha's^([sic – meaning has]) vndone thee; hindge thy knee, / And let his very breath whom thou'lt obſerue / Blow off thy Cap: [...]

   c. 1605–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii], page 92

5. To move or already be positioned in such a fashion that it presents itself as rotation when an off-centre fixed point is taken into account.

   Synonyms: swing

plural Hinges

1. A surname.