Hinge

Pronunciation

• enPR: hÄ­nj, IPA: /ˈhɪndÊ’/
• Rhymes: -ɪndÊ’

Origin

Middle English henge, from Old English *henge (""), compare Old English henge- in hengeclif ("overhanging cliff"), hengen ("hanging"). Akin to Low German henge ("a hook, hinge, handle"), Middle Dutch henghe, hanghe ("a hook, hinge, handle"), Dutch hengel ("hook"), geheng ("hinge"), hengsel ("hinge"), German dialectal hängel ("hook, joint"), German Henkel ("handle, hook"), Old English hōn ("to hang"), hangian ("to cause to hang, hang up"). More at hang.

Full definition of hinge

Noun

1. A jointed or flexible device that allows the pivoting of a door etc. See also pintel.
2. A stamp hinge, a folded and gummed paper rectangle for affixing postage stamps in an album.
3. A principle, or a point in time, on which subsequent reasonings or events depend.This argument was the hinge on which the question turned.
4. (statistics) The median of the upper or lower half of a batch, sample, or probability distribution.
5. One of the four cardinal points, east, west, north, or south.
• CreechWhen the moon is in the hinge at East.
• MiltonNor slept the winds
  Within their stony caves, but rush'd abroad
  From the four hinges of the world.

Synonyms

• (statistics) quartile

Derived terms

• hinge line, hingeline
• hinge termination
• lower hinge
• midhinge
• rehinge
• upper hinge
• hingeable

Verb

1. (transitive) To attach by, or equip with a hinge.
2. (intransitive) To depend on something.
3. (transitive) archaeology The 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. (obsolete) To bend.

Anagrams

• neigh