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American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A badge or insignia consisting of stripes meeting at an angle, worn on the sleeve of a military or police uniform to indicate rank, merit, or length of service.
2. n. Heraldry A device shaped like an inverted V.
3. n. A V-shaped pattern, especially a kind of fret used in architecture.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In heraldry, one of the honorable ordinaries. It is supposed to represent two rafters, as of a roof, leaning against each other at the top; but it may more properly be described as the lower half of a saltier completed to a point at the top. The two arms of the chevron rest upon the sinister and dexter bases of the field, and are joined in the center. It occupies one fifth of the surface of the field.
2. n. A variety of fret ornament common in Norman and other Romanesque architecture. When systematically repeated it forms a chevron-molding. Also called zigzag, chevron-work, and dancette.
3. n. Milit., a badge consisting of stripes meeting at an angle, worn on the coat-sleeves of non-commissioned officers, above the elbow. The number of stripes indicates the rank of the bearer: as, for a sergeant-major, three bars and an arc; for a quartermaster-sergeant, three bars and a tie of three bars; for a sergeant, three bars; for a corporal, two bars.
4. n. In anatomy and zoology, a chevron-bone (which see).
5. n. plural In carpentry, a pair of rafters set up and meeting at the ridge; or two rafters held together at the foot by a tie of some kind and therefore ready to put into place as a truss.

Wiktionary

1. n. A V-shaped pattern; used in architecture, and as an insignia of military or police rank, on the sleeve
2. n. heraldry A wide inverted V placed on a shield.
3. n. chiefly UK One of the V-shaped markings on the surface of roads used to indicate minimum distances between vehicles.
4. n. 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. n. informal A háček, a diacritical mark that may resemble an inverted circumflex.
6. v. To form or be formed into chevrons

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Her.) One of the nine honorable ordinaries, consisting of two broad bands of the width of the bar, issuing, respectively from the dexter and sinister bases of the field and conjoined at its center.
2. n. (Mil.) A distinguishing mark, above the elbow, on the sleeve of a non-commissioned officer's coat.
3. n. (Arch.) A zigzag molding, or group of moldings, common in Norman architecture.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. V-shaped sleeve badge indicating military rank and service
2. n. an inverted V-shaped charge