Dictionary Definition
coign
Noun
1 expandable metal or wooden wedge used by
printers to lock up a form within a chase [syn: quoin, coigne]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Etymology
A variant spelling of coin.Pronunciation
IPA: /kɔɪn/Noun
- A projecting corner
or angle.
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- 1922, Kind air defined the coigns of houses in Kildare street. — James Joyce, Ulysses
- 1964, They lay quietly as the morning advanced its little way, hid snug in their greenwood coign. — Anthony Burgess, Nothing Like the Sun
- 1977, Stephen R. Donaldson, Lord Foul's Bane, ISBN
0-345-34865-6, page 212
- The wall was intricately labored—lined and coigned and serried with regular and irregular groups of windows, balconies, buttresses ...
- 2007, Stephen R. Donaldson, Fatal Revenant, ISBN
978-0-399-15446-1, page 3
- In sunshine as vivid as revelation, Linden Avery knelt on the stone of a low-walled coign like a balcony high in the outward face of Revelstone's watchtower.
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Extensive Definition
Generally, a quoin is a wedge, used to support or anchor
other items. More specifically, quoin may refer to:
- Quoin (architecture), the corner stones that anchor the edge of the building wall
- In printing, quoins are wedges used by printers to hold the hand-set type in place in a printer's chase
- In naval warfare, a quoin was a wedge manipulated at the breech end of a cannon to raise or lower the barrel