chin
/ˈt͡ʃɪn/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms chins chinning chinned
- noun The bottom of a face, (specifically) the typically jutting jawline below the mouth. “What does it mean to have a pointy chin instead of a flat chin?”
- noun (slang, US) Talk.
- noun (slang, UK) A lie, a falsehood.
- noun (slang, UK) A person of the upper class.
- noun (boxing, uncountable) The ability to withstand being punched in the chin without being knocked out.
- noun (aviation) The lower part of the front of an aircraft, below the nose. “To paint chins of aircraft”
- noun The bottom part of a mobile phone, below the screen. “The phone's chin looks different from the rest of it.”
- verb (slang, dated, intransitive) To talk.
- verb (slang, dated, transitive) To talk to or with (someone).
- verb (reflexive, intransitive) To perform a chin-up (exercise in which one lifts one's own weight while hanging from a bar).
- verb (chiefly UK, transitive) To punch or hit (someone), especially on the chin (part of the body).
- verb (transitive) To put or hold (a musical instrument) up to one's chin.
- verb (transitive) To turn on or operate (a device) using one's chin; to select (a particular setting) using one's chin.
- verb (transitive) To put one's chin on (something).
- verb (transitive) To indicate or point toward (someone or something) with one's chin.
- noun (informal) A chinchilla.
- proper noun A hamlet in Alberta, Canada.
- proper noun A surname from Chinese.
- noun A tribe in Myanmar.
- proper noun A state of Myanmar.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English chyn, from Old English ċinn (“chin”), from Proto-West Germanic *kinnu, from Proto-Germanic *kinnuz (“chin”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵénus (“chin, jaw”).
Compare West Frisian/Dutch kin, Low German/German Kinn, Danish kind, Icelandic kinn, Welsh gen, Latin gena, Tocharian A śanweṃ, Ancient Greek γένυς (génus, “jaw”), Armenian ծնոտ (cnot), Persian چانه (čâne), Sanskrit हनु (hánu). Doublet of gena.
Shortening of chinchilla.
As a Chinese surname, a variant romanization of various Chinese characters, e.g. Hakka 陳／陈 (Chhṳ̀n), Taishanese 陳 /陈 (cin³), Cantonese 錢／钱 (cin4), Mandarin 金 (Chin¹), and Mandarin 秦 (Chʻin²).
From Burmese ချင်း (hkyang:).
Webster’s 1913
- noun The lower extremity of the face below the mouth; the point of the under jaw.
- noun The exterior or under surface embraced between the branches of the lower jaw bone, in birds.
Etymology [AS. cin, akin to OS. kin, G kinn, Icel. kinn, cheek, Dan. & Sw. kind, L. gena, Gr. hanu. *232.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “chin”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details