Chevron

Origin

Borrowing from fr {{2}} chevron ("rafter, chevron"), the mark so called because it looks like rafters of a shallow roof, from Vulgar Latin capriō, from Latin caper ("goat"), the likely connection between goats and rafters being the animal's angular hind legs.

Full definition of chevron

Noun

1. A V-shaped pattern; used in architecture, and as an insignia of military or police rank, on the sleeve
2. (heraldiccharge) A wide inverted V placed on a shield.
3. (chiefly British) One of the V-shaped markings on the surface of roads used to indicate minimum distances between vehicles.
• 2009, Jamie Dunn, Truckie has a point, Sunshine Coast Daily Online, June 13, 2009.I told you that in fact they were called chevrons and it was an exercise by the transport department to teach us to stay two chevrons behind the car in front.
4. A guillemet, either of the punctuation marks “«” or “»”, used in several languages to indicate passages of speech. Similar to typical quotation marks used in the English language such as ““” and “””.
5. (informal) A háček, a diacritical mark that may resemble an inverted circumflex.
• 1953, William James Entwistle, Aspects of Language (Faber and Faber), page 107It is pertinent to remember, however, that one of the greatest phoneticians, Jan Hus, used diacritics (in the form of points, which have later become chevrons in his own language), and that his alphabet is the most satisfactory for eastern Europe, since it has been officially adopted by the languages which use the Latin script.
• 1976, Stephen J. Lieberman, The Sumerian Loanwords in Old-Babylonian Akkadian (Harvard Semitic Studies, issue 22; published by Scholars Press for Semitic Museum), page 66The symbol Å™ (“r” with a chevron) is used for a phoneme which sounds like Czech Å™ (as in Dvořák), i.e. a voiced alveolar flap. The presence of the chevron has no effect on the index numbers used in transliteration; cf. 2.058.

Verb

1. To form or be formed into chevrons
• 1963, Lucien Victor Gewiss, "Process and Devices for Chevroning Pliable Sheet Material," US Patent 3397261 http://www.google.com/patents?id=XflXAAAAEBAJ&pg=PA11-IA4, page 14:...the sheet to be chevroned locks itself into the furrow.
• 1983, Allen Sillitoe, The Lost Flying Boat, ISBN 0246122366, page 118:Bull fixed the claw under a batten, strained like a sailor at the capstan, shirt off, arms chevroned by elaborate tattoos.
• 2003, Felice Picano, A House on the Ocean, a House on the Bay, ISBN 1560234407, page 55:Earlier, in glaring winter daylight, I'd first noticed thin lines chevroning off the edge of each eye into the taut skin of his cheeks...----