hinges

Noun

hinge (plural hinges)

1. A jointed or flexible device that allows the pivoting of a door etc.
   • The massy portals of the churches swung creaking on their hinges; and some lay dead on the pavement.1826, [Mary Shelley], chapter I, in The Last Man. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC

   Synonyms:

   har

2. A naturally occurring joint resembling such hardware in form or action, as in the shell of a bivalve.
   • The pedicel of the pollinium is articulated as before by a hinge to the disc; it can move freely only in one direction owing to one end of the disc being upturned.1862, Charles Darwin, The Various Contrivances by Which Orchids Are Fertilized by Insects
3. A stamp hinge, a folded and gummed paper rectangle for affixing postage stamps in an album.
4. A principle, or a point in time, on which subsequent reasonings or events depend.
   • This argument was the hinge on which the question turned.
5. The median of the upper or lower half of a batch, sample, or probability distribution.
6. One of the four cardinal points, east, west, north, or south.
   • If when the Moon is in the Hinge at East, / The Birth breaks forward from its native rest; / Full Eighty Years, if you two Years abate, / This Station gives, and long defers its Fate1697, Thomas Creech, The five books of Mr. Manilius containing a system of the ancient astronomy and astrology: together with the philosophy of the Stoicks, page 121

See all 15 meanings of hinge