Definition of "hinge"

hinge

/ˈhɪnd͡ʒ/

noun
plural hinges
1. A jointed or flexible device that allows the pivoting of a door etc.
  Quotations
  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, […]
2. A naturally occurring joint resembling such hardware in form or action, as in the shell of a bivalve.
  Quotations
  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.
  Quotations
  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. (statistics) The 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.
  Quotations
  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
  100
  1671, John Milton, “The First Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J. M[acock] for John Starkey […], page 4
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.
verb
third-person singular simple present hinges, present participle hinging or hingeing, simple past and past participle hinged
1. (transitive) To attach by, or equip with a hinge.
2. (intransitive, with on or upon) To depend on something.
  Quotations
  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. (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.
4. (obsolete) To bend.
  Quotations
  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, 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, [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.

Definition of "hinge"

hinge

noun

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verb

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