My question is - when do you EVER need to refer to the pointy operating parts of a fork, anyway? Except perhaps in the sole instance of “Don’t put that fork on the table. It has a bent tine.”
Just a matter of tine.
I have known the word since my younger days.
Well, there was the Cyndi Lauper hit “Tine After Tine” that I am quite fond of.
Does anyone really know what tine is?
Does anyone really care?
As for me, I’m sure I’ve seen the word, but the thread title didn’t jog my memory. I had to read a bit to figure it out.
Didn’t anyone watch Cagney & Lacey or Judging Amy? Those shows used “tine” daily.
Don’t ask me when or where I learned that word, but I did know it.
And I knew rungs and risers, but in this thread I’ve learned stiles.
I know “stiles” as the steps that allow people to climb over a fence across a footpath while preventing animals from getting out.
The more common term is turnstile and almost everyone knows that. Those are the barriers that you can walk through one way but not the other like at a subway station. Therefore, it is easy to figure out the more simple version of one.
The thing I find most remarkable is that Americans, Canadians, English, Irish and Australians still speak the same language with only a few exceptions (we will leave the Scottish and Brooklynites out of this for now). Despite hundreds of years of separation, the vast majority of it would be perfectly mutually intelligible if the rest of them just learned to talk right.
I’ve often given that some thought, especially reading posts here.
Also, watching an Australian TV show (Bondi Vet) a lot of the same colloquialisms are completely shared with North American English. How did that happen?
(Although they sure do say “mate” an awful lot!)
I’m from Scotland originally. Although the accent can be thick (and they certainly can informally write in the same accent) formal writing - judged even by our Scottish posters here - is indistinct from any other English language poster.
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Pretty common word, IMO.
On a side note, I recently visited a proctologist for an exam. He pulled a dinner fork from the instrument tray and told me to bend over. I expressed some reservations about him using a fork, but he assured me he had done it for years. He said “These are the tines that pry men’s holes.”
Yes, whereas us Yew individuals use the correct terms, “crappah” and “nappy” and “figger”, fnar fnar fnar.
Heah, pull mai figger, deah boi!
tine, n.1
(taɪn)
Forms: α. 1, 3–6 tind, 4–6 tynde, 5 tyynde, 6 (9 dial.) tynd. β. (5 tene), 5–9 tyne, 6– tine.
[OE. tind = MHG. zint sharp point, ON. tindr tine (Sw. tinne, Da. dial. tind tooth of a rake):—OTeut. *tind-iz. (To the same root prob. belongs OHG. zinna merlon of a wall:—OTeut. *tindjôn-.) OE. tind became in ME. tīnd, as in bind, etc.; whence, by loss of d, tine, as in tind v. Cf. WFris. tine, tooth of fork, etc.]
1.1 Each of a series of projecting sharp points on some weapon or implement, as a harrow, fork, eel-spear, etc.; a prong, spike, tooth.
α a 700 Epinal Gloss. (O.E.T.) 873 Rostris, foraeuuallum, uel tindum. c 725 Corpus Gloss. (ibid.) 1753 Rostri, tindas. ? a 1400 Erasmus (Bedf. MS. lf. 280) in Horstm. Altengl. Leg. (1878) 202 Castyng hym oftyn on þe tyndes of an harow. c 1400 Laud Troy Bk. 15724 Thei‥Sclow hem thikkere with her arwes Than tyndes of tre stondis In harwes. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 494/1 Tyynde, prekyl (K. tynde, pryke), carnica. 1668 R. B. Adagia Scot. 37 Many maisters, quoth the Poddock to the Harrow, when every tind took her a knock.
β 1554 Lydgate’s Bochas ix. vi. 200 b/2 The fiery tines of his brennyng arow. 1591 Greene Art Conny Catch. ii. (1592) 25 A long hooke‥that hath at the end a crooke, with three tynes turned contrary. 1642 Fuller Holy & Prof. St. iii. xxi. 211 That fork needing strong tines wherewith one must thrust away nature. 1644 [Walsingham] Effigies True Fortitude 12 An old man‥with his Pitchforke ran at Captaine Smith, and twice stroke the tynes thereof against his breast. 1649 W. Blithe Eng. Improv. Impr. xvi. (1653) 104 Two or three sorts of Harrows, each Harrow having his Teeth or tines thicker than other. 1721 [see tig n.1 1]. a 1734 North Lives (1826) II. 201 A fork with five tines. 1789 Trans. Soc. Arts I. 100 A harrow composed of coulters instead of tines. 1828 Craven Gloss., Tine, the prong of a fork‥; also the tooth of a harrow. 1968 J. Arnold Shell Bk. Country Crafts 92 The larger, called a drag rake, carrying about thirty tines compared with fifteen for the garden rake. 1978 Cornish Guardian 27 Apr. 10/4 (Advt.), 60in rotavator with new tines. 1979 P. Theroux Old Patagonian Express (1980) xiv. 289 The man jerked the tines of his fork into a slab of ham.
- a.2.a Each of the pointed branches of a deer’s horn.
α [a 1000 Sal. & Sat. (Kemble) 150 Anra ᴁehwylc deor hæbbe synderlice xii hornas irene, and anra ᴁehwylc horn hæbbe xii tindas irene, and anra ᴁehwylc tind hæbbe synderlice xii ordas.] c 1375 Sc. Leg. Saints xxix. (Placidas) 105 A gret hart‥he saw betwen his tyndis brycht A verray croice schenand lycht. c 1430 Syr Tryam. 1085 The herte stroke hym wyth hys tyndys. 1513 Douglas Æneis vii. ix. 18 This hart‥With large heid and tyndis fwrnest fayr. 1593 Rites of Durham (1903) 24 Dyd cast backe his handes betwixt ye Tyndes of ye said harte to stay him selfe.
β 1495 Trevisa’s Barth. De P.R. xviii. xxx. 792 The aege of hartys is knowe by auntlers and tynes of his hornes, for euery yere it encreacith bi a tyne vnto vii yere. 1616 Surfl. & Markh. Country Farme 684 You may likewise iudge of their age by the tynes of their hornes. 1825 Scott Talism. xxiv, A stag of ten tynes. 1877 Encycl. Brit. VII. 23 The antlers of the Stag are rounded, and bear three ‘tines’ or branches, and a crown consisting of three or more points.‥ The antlers during the second year consist of a simple unbranched stem, to which a tine or branch is added in each successive year, until the normal development is attained.
†b.2.b A small branch or twig of a tree; the stalk of a fruit. Obs. rare.
13‥ E.E. Allit. P. A. 78 As bornyst syluer þe lef onslydez, Þat þike con trylle on vcha tynde [rime schynde]. 13‥ Minor Poems fr. Vernon MS. lii. 82 His hed nou leoneþ on þornes tynde. c 1440 Pallad. on Husb. iv. 395 Pomes take, The tenes with, to stonde in cannes saue.
c.2.c transf. Each of two branches of a stream.
1875 R. F. Burton Gorilla L. (1876) II. 73 We reached a shallow fork, one tine of which‥comes from the Congo Grande.
†3.3 A rung or step of a ladder. Obs. rare.
a 1225 Ancr. R. 354 Scheome and pine, ase Seint Bernard seið, beoð þe two leddre stalen‥and bitweonen þeos stalen beoð þe tindes ivestned of alle gode þeawes, bi hwuche me climbeð to þe blisse of heouene.
4.4 [f. tine v.3] An act of harrowing.
1778 W. H. Marshall Minutes Agric. 12 Dec. an. 1776, Our first tine was with fine harrows, which broke the crum, without tearing-up the sod. 1825 Jamieson s.v., A double tynd, or teind, is harrowing the same piece of ground twice at the same yoking. 1854 Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc. XV. ii. 403 Some sow it after the barley, and give it a tine with the harrows.
†5.5 attrib. and Comb.: tine-knife, see quot.; tine nail (tynd nale), a large sharp-pointed nail, a spike. Obs.
1555–6 Burgh Rec. Edinb. (1871) II. 322 For xixxx of grait tynd nalis to the greit yat of the tolbuith. 1888 Sheffield Gloss., Tine-knife, a knife whose haft is made from a tine of a stag’s antler.
prong, n.2
(prɒŋ)
Forms: α. 5–6 prange, 6 prannge, prang. β. 5–7 pronge, 6 prongue, 7 prung, 6– prong. See also sprong.
[Known only from c 1500; origin and etymology obscure; perh. related to prec.; cf. MLG. prange a pinching, also a pinching instrument, a horse’s barnacle (Franck). But in sense more akin to prag n.1, prog n.1, as if a nasalized variant of these.]
- a.1.a An instrument or implement with two, three, or more piercing points or tines; a forked instrument, a fork. In many specific uses, now chiefly dial.; e.g. a fork to eat with, a table-fork; a long-handled fork for kitchen use; a kind of fire-iron; a rural implement, a pitchfork, hay-fork, dung-fork, digging-fork.
1492 Ryman Poems lv. 4 in Archiv. Stud. neu. Spr. LXXXIX. 221 Dethe hathe felde me with his pronge. [Cf. lxxxv. 5 When dredefull deth to the shal come And smyte the with his spronge.] 1501 Will of Treffry (Somerset Ho.), A Prange of siluer for grene gynger.
ETA: OED
Leo does that answer, in your opinion, how many individuals are familiar with the word?
Op, yes i know what a tine is.
No, raventhief, I see now that it doesn’t, and it’s good you pointed it out. If I get around to it I’ll ask a mod to delete it; I’m not going to ask him to give me a warning because that would be junior modding and then I’d get two.
I’ve probably said “tine” or “tines” only a couple of times in my life. I know what they are; I just don’t need to use the words much.
IME it is more commonly a “fork tine” or “pitchfork tine”. As in catch it on your fork tine (versus catch it on your tine).
Not a word I hear or use much though.
And per the OP, how wide can she spr … no, no, never mind.
HibE: Pitchforks and fork-life trucks have tines. Table forks have prongs, unless you’re being pedantic or showing off, in which case they can have tines. Aglets are the protective metal or plastic tubes on the end of shoelaces that stop them from fraying.
Weird. I think of table forks as having tines and pitchforks as having prongs.
It’s a common term in California farm country … I’ve never heard rototiller “blades” called anything else …