FromMiddle Englishcheveroun, fromOld Frenchchevron, the mark so called because it looks like rafters of a shallow roof, fromVulgar Latin*capriō, fromLatincaper(“goat”), the likely connection between goats and rafters being the animal's horns.
chevron (pluralchevrons)
- . v-shaped pattern; used inarchitecture, and as aninsignia ofmilitary orpolicerank, on thesleeve.
- (heraldry) A wide inverted V placed on a shield.
- Coordinate terms:chevronel,couple-close
- (chiefly UK) One of the V-shaped markings on the surface ofroads used to indicateminimum distances betweenvehicles.
- 2009, Jamie Dunn,Truckie has a point, Sunshine Coast Daily Online, June 13, 2009.
- I told you that in fact they were calledchevrons and it was an exercise by the transport department to teach us to stay twochevrons behind the car in front.
- Aguillemet, either of the punctuation marks “«” or “»”, used in severallanguages to indicatepassages ofspeech. Similar to typicalquotation marks used in the English language such as ““” and “””.
- Anangle bracket, either used as a typographic or a scientific symbol.
- (informal) Aháček, a diacritical mark that may resemble an inverted circumflex.
1953, William James Entwistle,Aspects of Language,Faber and Faber,page107:It is pertinent to remember, however, that one of the greatest phoneticians, Jan Hus, used diacritics (in the form of points, which have later becomechevrons in his own language), and that his alphabet is the most satisfactory for eastern Europe, since it has been officially adopted by the languages which use the Latin script.
- 1976, Stephen J. Lieberman,The Sumerian Loanwords in Old-Babylonian Akkadian (Harvard Semitic Studies, issue 22;published by Scholars PressforHarvard Semitic Museum),page 66
- The symbol ř (“r” with achevron) is used for a phoneme which sounds like Czech ř (as in Dvořák), i.e. a voiced alveolar flap. The presence of thechevron has no effect on the index numbers used in transliteration; cf. 2.058.
- Awedge-shapedsedimentdeposit observed on coastlines and continental interiors around the world.
- Synonym ofarrowhead(“horse jump obstacle”)
- In heraldry, brokenchevrons are represented and described in blazon in a variety of ways: see examples atrompu.
heraldry: wide inverted V
V-shaped marking on the surface of road
diacritical mark
—seeháčekchevron (third-person singular simple presentchevrons,present participlechevroning,simple past and past participlechevroned)
- To form or be formed into chevrons
- 1963, Lucien Victor Gewiss, "Process and Devices for Chevroning Pliable Sheet Material," US Patent 3397261[1], page 14:
- ...the sheet to bechevroned locks itself into the furrow.
1973,Thomas Pynchon,Gravity's Rainbow:... as a thick finger with a gob of very slippery jelly or cream comes sliding down the crack now towards his asshole,chevroning the hairs along like topo lines up a river valley...
1983, Allen Sillitoe,The Lost Flying Boat,→ISBN, page118:Bull fixed the claw under a batten, strained like a sailor at the capstan, shirt off, armschevroned by elaborate tattoos.
2003, Felice Picano,A House on the Ocean, a House on the Bay,→ISBN, page55:Earlier, in glaring winter daylight, i'd first noticed thin lineschevroning off the edge of each eye into the taut skin of his cheeks...
Inherited fromOld French, fromVulgar Latin*capriōnem, from*capreus, cf. alsocaprone. Ultimately fromLatincaper(“goat”).
chevron m (pluralchevrons)
- rafter
- (heraldry)chevron
chevron on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Chevron in theEncyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)