hinge
Definitions
General English
- noun a piece of metal used to hold something, e.g. a door, window or lid, so that it can swing open and shut
Agriculture
- noun soil which is left uncut by a plough when it has failed to cut a full furrow
Aviation
- noun a device which allows a door, flap or lid to open and close on a stationary frame
- verb to move against a stationary frame
Construction
- A flexible piece or a pair of plates or leaves joined by a pin so as to allow swinging motion in a single plane of one of the members to which it is attached, such as a door or gate.
Publishing
- noun a line along which a book cover bends, where the front or back of the cover joins the spine, strengthened in cased books by a strip of gauze
Real Estate
- noun a movable joint of metal or plastic used to fasten together two things, e.g. a box and its lid, and allow one of them to pivot
Origin & History of “hinge”
Hinge is generally agreed to be related to the verb hang, and to mean etymologically ‘something on which a door hangs’, but the circumstances of its formation are obscure (as indeed are the reasons for its rhyming with singe, a 16th-century development; before that it rhymed with sing).
