Etymologically
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shin

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Pronunciation

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
  • 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