Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A badge or insignia consisting of stripes meeting at an angle, worn on the sleeve of a military or police uniform to indicate rank, merit, or length of service.
  • noun Heraldry A device shaped like an inverted V.
  • noun A V-shaped pattern, especially a kind of fret used in architecture.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun plural In carpentry, a pair of rafters set up and meeting at the ridge; or two rafters held together at the foot by a tie of some kind and therefore ready to put into place as a truss.
  • noun In heraldry, one of the honorable ordinaries.
  • noun A variety of fret ornament common in Norman and other Romanesque architecture.
  • noun Milit., a badge consisting of stripes meeting at an angle, worn on the coat-sleeves of non-commissioned officers, above the elbow.
  • noun In anatomy and zoology, a chevron-bone (which see).

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Her.) One of the nine honorable ordinaries, consisting of two broad bands of the width of the bar, issuing, respectively from the dexter and sinister bases of the field and conjoined at its center.
  • noun (Mil.) A distinguishing mark, above the elbow, on the sleeve of a non-commissioned officer's coat.
  • noun (Arch.) A zigzag molding, or group of moldings, common in Norman architecture.
  • noun (Anat.) The V-shaped subvertebral arches which inclose the caudal blood vessels in some animals.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A V-shaped pattern; used in architecture, and as an insignia of military or police rank, on the sleeve
  • noun heraldry A wide inverted V placed on a shield.
  • noun chiefly UK One of the V-shaped markings on the surface of roads used to indicate minimum distances between vehicles.
  • noun A guillemet, either of the punctuation marks “«” or “»”, used in several languages to indicate passages of speech. Similar to typical quotation marks used in the English language such as “” and “”.
  • noun informal A háček, a diacritical mark that may resemble an inverted circumflex.
  • verb To form or be formed into chevrons

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun V-shaped sleeve badge indicating military rank and service
  • noun an inverted V-shaped charge

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English cheveron, from Old French chevron, rafter (from the meeting of rafters at an angle), probably from Vulgar Latin *capriō, *capriōn-; akin to Latin capreolus, young of the roe deer, rafter (from the resemblance of the rafters of a pitched roof to the forked antlers of the roe deer), from diminutive of caprea, roe deer, from Latin caper, capr-, goat.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French chevron ("rafter, chevron"), the mark so called because it looks like rafters of a shallow roof, from Vulgar Latin *capriō, from Latin caper ("goat"), the likely connection between goats and rafters being the animal's angular hind legs.

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Examples

  • The resemblance of "chevron" to "chèvre," the French word for "goat" and our word for a kind of cheese that comes from goat's milk, is no coincidence, as that word derives from "caper" as well.

    Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day 2010

  • In april I received the one and only document I have received in three years from chevron the document stated I had an overdue payment due of $0.00 I called chevron, they told me to disregard letter.

    unknown title 2009

  • In another basic task, players were asked to visually track an object moving across a screen such as a chevron, that is, a sign.

    Choke Ph.D. Sian Beilock 2010

  • In another basic task, players were asked to visually track an object moving across a screen such as a chevron, that is, a sign.

    Choke Ph.D. Sian Beilock 2010

  • In another basic task, players were asked to visually track an object moving across a screen such as a chevron, that is, a sign.

    Choke Ph.D. Sian Beilock 2010

  • I thought a chevron was a gas station, so there you go.

    EXTRALIFE – By Scott Johnson - Today’s Comic: “Sensory Overload” 2007

  • The National Transportation Safety Board has shipped three sections of pipe from the explosion site to its laboratory in Ashburn, Va., where metallurgists and engineers will examine welds, corrosion coatings and so-called chevron marks, which are microscopic ridges in the tear surfaces of the pipe that can disclose which way it ripped apart.

    San Bruno gas blast gives ammunition to critics of industry risk assessment - latimes.com 2010

  • They body terminates in an eel-like tail of over eighty elements, each strengthened by a dorsal spine above and a V-shaped bone, called a chevron, below; so that a vertical section of the lizard would have a diamond shape.

    AMBL 2008

  • The NY Times has a great piece on an ongoing project that is reviewing the world's shorelines for "chevron" deposits.

    Asteroid and Comet Strikes 2006

  • The NY Times has a great piece on an ongoing project that is reviewing the world's shorelines for "chevron" deposits.

    Archive 2006-11-01 2006

Comments

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  • In heraldry, charge or device on the escutcheon, consisting of a bar bent like two meeting rafters.

    examples: chevron couped: one which does not touch the sides of the escutcheon; chevron in chief: one which rises to the top of the field; chevron rompee: one with the upper part displaced, as if broken off.

    February 5, 2007

  • It has a whole new meaning for me since seeing Stargate (movie, SG-1 or SGA, take your pick)!!

    May 4, 2007

  • The private sector's alternative to the Catholic church.

    July 30, 2008