cheville
See also: chevillé
English
Etymology
Borrowed from French cheville. Doublet of clavicle.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ʃəˈviː/, /ʃəˈviːl/
Noun
cheville (plural chevilles)
- (poetry) A word or phrase whose only function is to make a sentence metrically balanced.
- 1905, Robert Louis Stevenson, The Art of Writing
- The genius of prose rejects the cheville no less emphatically than the laws of verse; and the cheville, I should perhaps explain to some of my readers, is any meaningless or very watered phrase employed to strike a balance in the sound.
- 1910, Patrick Weston Joyce, English as we speak it in Ireland, chapter 5
- The practice of using chevilles was very common in old Irish poetry, and a bad practice it was; for many a good poem is quite spoiled by the constant and wearisome recurrence of these chevilles.
- 1905, Robert Louis Stevenson, The Art of Writing
French
Etymology
From Old French cheville, from Vulgar Latin *cavicla, dissimilated and syncopated form of Classical Latin clāvicula, diminutive of clāvis (“key”). Doublet of clavicule, a borrowing.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ʃə.vij/, (informal) /ʃfij/
audio (file)
Noun
cheville f (plural chevilles)
- ankle
- dowel, peg
- wall plug
- (poetry) cheville
Derived terms
- arriver à la cheville
- avoir les chevilles qui enflent
- cheville ouvrière
- chevillette
- en cheville
Related terms
- clé
Further reading
- “cheville”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Old French
Alternative forms
- kevile (Northern)
Alternative forms
- IPA(key): /t͡ʃəˈvi.ʎə/
Etymology
From Vulgar Latin *cāvicla < *cāvicula, from Classical Latin clāvicula, diminutive of clāvis (“key”).
Noun
cheville f (oblique plural chevilles, nominative singular cheville, nominative plural chevilles)
- ankle (anatomy)
Related terms
- clef
Descendants
- French: cheville
- Norman: g'vil'ye, gvil; quevîle