linch
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
From Middle English linche, link, from Old English hlinc (“a hill”).
Pronunciation
Noun
linch (plural linches)
- A ledge, a terrace; a right-angled projection; a lynchet.
- 1910, An introduction to the study of local history and antiquities, page 387:
- Within ten years linches were formed; rain washed down the mould, some accident arrested it at a certain line, and a terrace was the result. Certainly the tendency is for the upper part of such a field to be denuded of mould, to be worked "to the bone," i.e. to the bare chalk or stone. But the first makers of linches had no choice. They had to farm on slopes or not at all, […]
- Peter James, Nick Thorpe, Ancient Mysteries →ISBN, page 289:
- Indeed, a map of 1844 marks some of the lower terraces on the southern and eastern flanks of the hill as "Tor Linches," a linch or lynchet being a terrace of land wide enough to plot. (Some linches were deliberately Fashioned; others came about as the land flattened into platforms through being worked.)
- 1910, An introduction to the study of local history and antiquities, page 387:
- (rare, regional or obsolete) An acclivity; a small hill or hillock.
- Mum and the Sothsegger (15th c.)
- I lay down on a linch to lithe my bones.
- Mum and the Sothsegger (15th c.)
Derived terms
Related terms
References
- “linch”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- “link”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
- Wright, Joseph (1902) The English Dialect Dictionary[1], volume 3, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 610