Shin
name, noun, verb, slang ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 The front part of the leg below the knee; the front edge of the shin bone: Shinbone on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
"Soccer players have to wear protective gear so they don't injure their shins."
- 2 The twenty-first letter of many Semitic alphabets/abjads (Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic and others): Shin (letter) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
- 3 the front part of the human leg between the knee and the ankle wordnet
- 4 A fishplate for a railway
- 5 the inner and thicker of the two bones of the human leg between the knee and ankle wordnet
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- 6 the 22nd letter of the Hebrew alphabet wordnet
- 7 a cut of meat from the lower part of the leg wordnet
- 1 To climb up or lower oneself down a mast, tree, rope, or the like, by embracing it alternately with the arms and legs, without help of steps, spurs, or the like.
"to shin up a mast"
- 2 climb awkwardly, as if by scrambling wordnet
- 3 To strike with the shin.
"The warning signs had been there as Peter Cech had already had to palm away a stinging shot from Ronald Zubar but immediately afterwards the Blues goalkeeper could only watch in horror as defender Boswinga shinned the ball into his own net from Hunt's corner."
- 4 To run about borrowing money hastily and temporarily, as when trying to make a payment. US, slang
"The Senator was shinning around, to get gold for the rascally bank-rags which he was obliged to take."
- 1 A river in Scotland, in the Highlands
Example
More examples"She took some painkillers to take the edge off the pain in her shin."
Etymology
From Middle English schyne, from Old English scinu, from Proto-West Germanic *skinu, from Proto-Germanic *skinō. Cognate with West Frisian skine, Dutch scheen, German Schiene. Not related to skin.
From Scottish Gaelic abhainn Sin.
Related phrases
More for "shin"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.