hinge — English Dictionary

hinge
Pronunciations (3)
  • /ˈhɪnd͡ʒ/
  • [ˈhɪnd͡ʒ]
  • ˈhɪndʒ

Noun

  1. A jointed or flexible device that allows the pivoting of a door etc.

    Examples

    The massy portals of the churches swung creaking on their hinges; and some lay dead on the pavement.

  2. A naturally occurring joint resembling such hardware in form or action, as in the shell of a bivalve.

    Examples
    More examples (1)

    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.

  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.

    Examples

    This argument was the hinge on which the question turned.

    But let me say, with all deference, that these positions do not appear to me to touch the hinge of the argument before us.

    More examples (1)

    These grown-up children were at that hinge of life when parents must begin to shrink and fold.

  5. 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.

    Examples
    More examples (1)

    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

    In ruine reconcil'd: nor slept the winds / Within thir stony caves, but rush'd abroad / From the four hinges of the world, and fell

  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.

    Synonyms
  9. To be in poor health; to be out of sorts.

    Usage
    • dialectal

Verb

  1. To attach by, or equip with a hinge.

    Usage
    • Transitive
  2. To depend on something.

    Usage
    • Intransitive
    Examples
    More examples (1)

    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.

  3. 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.

    Usage
    • Transitive
    Examples

    The flake hinged at an inclusion in the core.

  4. To bend.

    Usage
    • Obsolete
    Examples
    More examples (1)

    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: [...]

  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.

    Synonyms

Noun

  1. a joint that holds two parts together so that one can swing relative to the other

    Broader terms
  2. a circumstance upon which subsequent events depend

    Broader terms
    Examples

    his absence is the hinge of our plan

Verb

  1. attach with a hinge

    Broader terms
Word forms
hingeshingeshinginghingeinghingedhinged

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