shin

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English shine,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English scinu, a strong feminine noun,^[5][6][7] from Proto-Germanic *skinō.^[2][8][9] It is cognate with West Frisian skine, North Frisian skenn, Middle Low German schēne, Middle Dutch schēne (modern scheen) and Old High German scina (“shin, needle”), whose descendant Schiene now means a thin plate, splint or rail, the shin being Schienbein;^{[5][2][7][10]} Swedish skena and Danish skinne (“splint, rail”) were taken from Low or High German.^[5] The basic sense seems to have been "thin or narrow piece",^{[5][7][11][12]} and the OED takes scīa (“shin”) and Middle High German schīe (“hedge-stake”) to be related.^[5] Etymonline and Barnhart trace the Germanic noun to Proto-Indo-European *skei- (“to cut, split”),^[8][2][4] the root of shed.^[3] Skeat thought it might be allied to skin, the "thinly covered bone", but called this doubtful.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The front of the leg between the knee and the ankle: Old English glossaries render Latin tibia with scina and scinbān, shinbone.^[6][5] The Middle English form shine is first found about 1250, in The Owl and the Nightingale.^[2]

Semantic evolution

From the 18th century the word also named the lower part of a leg of beef, from 1736.^[5][14] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as the forepart of the leg.^[15] Figurative phrases grew out of striking someone on the shins: to break shins, in thieves' slang to borrow money, is recorded from 1699,^[5] and the verb shin had the same meaning in American English from 1855.^[5][16] The verb, formed from the noun, first meant to kick someone on the shins (1819);^[5] the sense "to climb a mast, rope or pole using the arms and legs", originally sailors' usage, appears in 1829 in Marryat.^[5][2][8] In American English it also meant to move quickly on foot, from 1838.^[5][3] In Scots the noun was used for the sharp slope of a hill (1817),^[5] and in Yorkshire dialect against the shins meant against the grain.^[17]

Timeline

• before 1000 – Old English scinu, shin, in glossaries.^[2][6]
• c. 1250 – Middle English shine, in The Owl and the Nightingale.^[2]
• 1546 – figurative phrases about striking someone over the shins.^[5]
• 1699 – to break shins, to borrow money (slang).^[5]
• 1736 – the lower part of a leg of beef.^[5]
• 1817 – Scots, the sharp slope of a hill.^[5]
• 1819 – verb, to kick someone on the shins.^[5]
• 1829 – verb, to climb using the arms and legs.^[5][2][8]
• 1838 – US, to move quickly on foot.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The front part of the leg between the knee and the ankle: She bruised her shin on the coffee table.^[18][3][5]
2. The front edge of the tibia.^[18][3]
3. A cut of beef from the lower foreleg, used for stewing or braising.^[18][3][5]

Verb

1. To climb a pole, rope, tree or the like by gripping with the hands or arms and the legs: The boy shinned up the drainpipe.^[18][3][5]
2. To kick someone on the shins.^[18][3][5]
3. (US) To move quickly on foot.^[3][5]

Word family

• shinplaster
• shinny

Related words

• shinbone
• chine

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
17. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
18. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins