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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

shin.

The front part of the leg below the knee; the front edge of the shin bone: Shinbone on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ʃɪn/
  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. A fishplate for a railway

Where this word comes from

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.

verb/ʃɪn/
  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. To strike with the shin.

  3. To run about borrowing money hastily and temporarily, as when trying to make a payment.

    US · slang
Where this word comes from

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.

noun/ʃɪn/
  1. The twenty-first letter of many Semitic alphabets/abjads (Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic and others): Shin (letter) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.