shin
/ʃɪn
/noun
1The front of the leg below the knee.Children commonly fall and scrape or bruise the skin covering anterior parts of the body such as the shins, knees, hands, elbows, nose, periorbital area and forehead....
- Work on flexibility everyday, particularly around your hips, thighs, knees, shins and especially your feet.
- There are pieces of armor around her wrists, elbows, knees, thighs and shins.
1.1A cut of beef from the lower part of a cow’s leg.For my main course, I had the fillet of Aberdeen beef, with braised shin and green vegetables, served on a bed of creamed celeriac and Madeira sauce....
- Brian sauntered past his meat cases, into a back room where an employee hacked away at shins of beef, and through the door of his meat refrigerator.
- For beef, good casserole cuts are shin, brisket, neck, topside, thick flank or shoulder.
verb (shins, shinning, shinned) [no object] (shin up/down)
Climb quickly up or down by gripping with one’s arms and legs: he shinned up a tree...
- Others climbed trees and shinned up sections of the Minster.
- He used to frighten us all by shinning up lamp posts, or climbing up into the loft or on to our porch.
- I climbed out of the window, shinned down the drain pipe, crossed the back lawn and hopped over the wall.
Synonyms
climb (up/down), clamber up/down, scramble up/down, scrabble up/down, swarm up/down, shoot up/down, go up/down;
mount, ascend, scale, claw one's way up;
descend, slide down, drop down;
North American shinny
Origin
Old English scinu, probably from a Germanic base meaning 'narrow or thin piece'; related to German Schiene 'thin plate' and Dutch scheen. The verb was originally in nautical use (early 19th century).