Kine
noun ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
- 1 plural of cow archaic, dialectal, form-of, plural
"Pippin could see all the Pelennor laid out before him, dotted into the distance with farmsteads and little walls, barns and byres, but nowhere could he see any kine or other beasts."
- 2 The unit velocity in the CGS system, equal to one centimeter per second.
"It may be well to note that a mile per hour is equal to 44.7 kines, and that accordingly a sharp walking pace may attain 200 kines […]"
- 3 Clipping of kinescope (“type of recording”). abbreviation, alt-of, clipping
- 4 In kinesics, any of the individual movements composing a kineme.
- 5 domesticated bovine animals as a group regardless of sex or age wordnet
Example
More examples"This said, / I ceased, and Helenus with slaughtered kine / implores the god, and from his sacred head / unbinds the wreath, and leads me to the shrine, / awed by Apollo's power, and chants the doom divine:"
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English kyn, kyne, equivalent to ky + -en (plural ending), a double plural.
Related phrases
More for "kine"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.