inch
Pluralinches
Pluralinches
- 1A unit of length equal to one twelfth of a foot, or 2.54 centimeters, roughly the width of a thumb.
The carpenter trimmed the plank down to exactly one inch.
The painting measures eighteen inches across.
Note
Behind the measure is Latin uncia, the Roman inch, which traces back to a root meaning "one". Ounce comes from the same Latin word, so the two are doublets. The thumb in the definition has company in Middle Dutch enke, which meant a thumb, a thumb's width, and an inch. The plural is inches, though casual British speech sometimes leaves it as inch. The symbol is ″, as in 12″.
- 2A very short distance, especially a tiny margin or amount.
She won the race by an inch.
They refused to give an inch during the negotiations.
Note
It lives mostly in phrases of refusal, such as not move an inch and not give an inch. Writers sometimes double it for emphasis: "not move an inch, nor a hair's-breadth." Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2 shows an older turn, at an inch: "we watched you at an inch." There the small distance measures how close the watchers stood, not how far anyone moved.
- 3To move forward slowly, by small amounts at a time, in a particular direction.
Glaciers inch down the valley over many years.
The injured hiker inched along the narrow ledge.
Similarcreep, edge, crawl, shuffle
Note
The verb almost always wants a direction after it: inch along, inch forward, inch under, inch ahead. The mover need not be a person. Salinger has morning light inch under a blind, and a football report has a team inch further ahead. Give it an object and it becomes the "move by degrees" verb, as in inching the train forward.
- 4A measure of rainfall equal to a depth of one inch of water collected on level ground.
Forecasters expect nearly an inch of rain by morning.
The valley received three inches of rain during the storm.
Note
Rainfall is reported as a depth, as if the water had stayed exactly where it fell, and the figure hides a surprising weight. Arthur Herbert Church's Food (1880) works it out: a tenth of an inch of water over an acre weighs more than ten tons. A single inch of rain on that acre therefore weighs ten times as much. In metric reports, the same depth is 25.4 millimeters.
- 5A rough measure of an alcoholic drink equal to a depth of one inch in the glass.
Pour an inch of brandy and warm it gently.
There were still a couple of inches of scotch in the bottle.
- 6Any of several comparable units of length found in other traditional systems of measurement.
The Russian inch matched the English one almost exactly.
Old trade required converting between many different inches.
- 7To move or drive something forward by small degrees, a little at a time.
The crew inched the massive beam into place.
Movers inch the wardrobe up the stairs one step at a time.
Note
Dryden's Cleomenes (1692) gives the transitive verb a sharper edge. A rival "inches out my master," displacing a man from favor step by patient step. The object there is a person, and the motion is out rather than forward. Modern use leans toward heavy things nudged into position, but the older line shows the verb could also describe a slow, deliberate takeover.
- 8
- 9A small island or islet.
A ruined abbey crowns the green inch in the middle of the river.
Fishermen anchored their boats beside the low-lying inch at dusk.
Note
A different word altogether, despite the spelling: it came through Scots from Scottish Gaelic innis and has nothing to do with the unit of length. It belongs to Scottish and Irish English. Walter Scott uses it in The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805): "To inch and rock the sea-mews fly." For readers elsewhere, islet is the safer choice.
- 10A meadow, pasture, or field, especially low-lying ground beside a river.
Hay was cut from the rich inch along the floodplain.
Sheep wandered across the damp inches at first light.
Note
The same Gaelic word as the "small island" sense, applied here to land rather than water. Alice Taylor's To School Through the Fields (1988) uses it in the plural for riverside grazing in rural Ireland. Her calves were "kept in the fields, known as the inches, along by the river." The plural with the article is the usual way to name such ground.
- 11Behaving in a cocky, cheeky, and overly bold manner.
That new prefect is very inch. He talks back to every teacher who corrects him.
Her inch attitude annoyed the whole team.
Similarcocky, cheeky, brash, impudent
Note
A Hong Kong coinage built on a quirk of Cantonese writing. The character 寸 (cyun³), which names the inch, is also written for 串 (cyun³), meaning "cocky" or "provocative." English speakers carried the unit's name over to the attitude. It is casual and local, typically in phrases like very inch. Outside Hong Kong, listeners will hear only the unit of length.
- 12To insult someone with a cocky put-down, or more generally to speak in a cocky, cheeky manner.
He loves to inch his friends whenever they lose.
The older boys inch anyone who shows up late.
Similartaunt, tease, mock, needle
Note
The verb grew from the same Cantonese source as the "cocky" adjective: to inch someone is to take a cheeky, self-assured shot at them. Like the adjective, it belongs to relaxed Hong Kong English. Its forms inching and inched look exactly like those of the slow-advancing verb, so only context tells them apart. Elsewhere, only the slow-advancing reading will be understood.
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Origins
From Middle English ynche, from Old English ynċe, which was borrowed from Latin uncia (a Roman inch or similar unit), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *óynos ("one"). It is a doublet of ounce.
From Scots inch, from Scottish Gaelic innis.
A semantic loan from Cantonese 寸 (cyun³, "inch"), an alternative form of 串 (cyun³, "cocky; to provoke").