Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The position at which two lines, surfaces, or edges meet and form an angle.
  • noun The area enclosed or bounded by an angle formed in this manner.
  • noun The place where two roads or streets join or intersect.
  • noun Sports Any of the four angles of a boxing or wrestling ring where the ropes are joined.
  • noun Baseball Either side of home plate, toward or away from the batter.
  • noun A corner kick in soccer.
  • noun Football A cornerback.
  • noun A threatening or embarrassing position from which escape is difficult.
  • noun A remote, secluded, or secret place.
  • noun A part or piece made to fit on a corner, as in mounting or for protection.
  • noun A speculative monopoly of a stock or commodity created by purchasing all or most of the available supply in order to raise its price.
  • noun Exclusive possession; monopoly.
  • intransitive verb To place or drive into a corner.
  • intransitive verb To form a corner in (a stock or commodity).
  • intransitive verb To furnish with corners.
  • intransitive verb To turn, as at a corner.
  • intransitive verb To come together or be situated on or at a corner.
  • adjective Located at a street corner.
  • adjective Designed for use in a corner.
  • idiom (around the corner) About to happen; imminent.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To drive or force into a corner, or into a place whence there is no escape.
  • To drive or force into a position of great difficulty; force into a position where failure, defeat, or surrender is inevitable; place in a situation from which escape is impossible: as, to corner a person in an argument.
  • To meet in a corner or angle; form a corner.
  • To be situated on or at a corner; impinge or be connected at an angle: as, the house corners on the main street, or (when standing cornerwise) to the street or road; Sweden corners on Russia at the north.
  • In making turpentine, to cut out a triangular shallow chip above each of the two corners of the box, to prepare the tree for chipping and to direct the flow of resin into the box.
  • To form a corner in (a stock or commodity). See to corner the market.
  • noun Specifically, a projecting angle in the side of an instrument of the viol family. In instruments of the true violin group there are two corners on each side, between which is the concave indentation called the waist. See block, 19.
  • noun In mathematics, a vertex or summit of a polyhedron.
  • noun In field hockey, a free hit against the defending side, made within three feet of the nearest corner flag.
  • noun The intersection of two converging lines or surfaces; an angle, whether internal or external: as, the corner of a building; the four corners of a square; the corner of two streets.
  • noun The space between two converging lines or surfaces; specifically, the space near their intersection: as, the four corners of a room.
  • noun Hence A narrow space partly inclosed; a small secret or retired place.
  • noun Indefinitely, any part, even the least and most remote or concealed: used emphatically, involving the inclusion of all parts: as, they searched every corner of the forest.
  • noun The end, extremity, or margin.
  • noun In bookbinding: A triangular tool used for decorating the corners of a book. Also corner-piece. The leather or other material used in the corners of a half-bound book, One of the metal guards used to protect the corners of heavily bound books.
  • noun A metallic cap or guard used to protect the corners of furniture, trunks, boxes, etc.
  • noun In surveying, a mark placed at a corner of a surveyed tract.
  • noun A monopolizing of the marketable supply of a stock or commodity, through purchases for immediate or future delivery, generally by a secretly organized combination, for the purpose of raising the price: as, a corner in wheat.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Association Football) A free kick from close to the nearest corner flag post, allowed to the opposite side when a player has sent the ball behind his own goal line.
  • transitive verb To drive into a corner.
  • transitive verb To drive into a position of great difficulty or hopeless embarrassment.
  • transitive verb To get command of (a stock, commodity, etc.), so as to be able to put one's own price on it.
  • noun The point where two converging lines meet; an angle, either external or internal.
  • noun The space in the angle between converging lines or walls which meet in a point.
  • noun An edge or extremity; the part farthest from the center; hence, any quarter or part.
  • noun A secret or secluded place; a remote or out of the way place; a nook.
  • noun Direction; quarter.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Anglo-Norman, from Old French corne, corner, horn, from Vulgar Latin *corna, from Latin cornua, pl. of cornū, horn, point; see ker- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English corner, from Anglo-Norman cornere (compare Old French cornier, corniere ("corner")), from Old French corne ("corner, angle", literally "a horn, projecting point"), from Vulgar Latin *corna ("horn"), from Latin cornua, plural of cornū ("projecting point, end, horn"). More at hirn.

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Examples

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  • Contronymic in the sense: trap vs. circumvent (get around the corner).

    January 27, 2007

  • In square dancing the lady on a man's left is his corner, and conversely the man on a lady's right is her corner. See also allemande

    February 6, 2008