chink

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
“
Outside it is as quiet; there is the chink--chink of the copper-smith bird, like a drop of water at regular intervals into a metal bowl The Colonel and G. rode at 8 A.M., and I biked.

View all »
Definitions (33)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (5)

  1. noun A narrow opening, such as a crack or fissure.
  2. transitive verb To make narrow openings in.
  3. transitive verb To fill narrow openings in.
2 more from this dictionary »

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (15)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (7)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (6)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • The crack by which he had laid himself had closed together, so that not a chink could be seen. —  The Lord of the Rings
  • I thought that if all the hills about there were pure chink, and all belonged to me, I would give them if I could just talk to her as I wanted to. —  David Crockett: His Life and Adventures
  • He can squeeze Himself through a very little chink, and He does not require that the gates should be flung wide open in order that, with some of His blessings, He may come in Mystical Christianity of the false sort has much to say about the indwelling of God in the soul, but it spoils all its teaching by insisting upon it that the condition on which God dwells in the soul is the soul's purifying itself to receive Him. —  Expositions of Holy Scripture Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John
  • She immediately became aware of his presence as he peeped through a chink, and called to one of her children to go and stop that chink. —  The Science of Fairy Tales An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology
  • The child went and blew once more through the chink, and the boy saw. —  The Science of Fairy Tales An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology
More examples »
 

Tags

chink hasn't been tagged yet.

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 137 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Add a related word »
Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

clink ·  clinking ·  cranny ·  crevice ·  tinkle ·  jingle ·  glint ·  cleft ·  sliver ·  slit ·  interstice ·  jangle

Used in the same contextWord Family

chink:   Chink ·  chinked
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (10)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Probably alteration of obsolete chine, from Middle English, crack, from Old English cine.
  2. Imitative.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (8)

  1. An extension, with -k, of Middle English chine, from Anglo-Saxon cinu, cine, a crack, chine, chink: see chine, n.
  2. Not found in Middle English except as in chinse: see chink, n., and cf. chinse. Cf. chine, v.
  3. from Middle English *chinken, chenken, an imitative word, a variant of clinken, English clink: see clink, and cf. jingle (practically = *chinkle, freq. of chink), tinkle, etc.
  4. from chink, v.
  5. Prop. imitative, like the equivalent fink, finch, spink. Cf. chink.
  6. Assibilated form of kink, q. v. Cf. chin-cough.
  7. A variant, perhaps a misprint, of chinch.
  8. apparently a variant of kink.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/tʃɪŋk/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word about once a month.

Recently looked up

self-conceit · extemporized · Portadown · Wounds · yg

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

these grunts every eight hours · haul it off to our darkest dungeon · send for a doctor · forget what witticism you were originally going to insert here because you've just banged your knee on your desk · the rest will come naturally