Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Plural of
cow . - noun A weasel.
- noun In physical, the c. g. s. unit of velocity. Since in the c. g. s. system the units of distance and time are the centimeter and second, respectively, the kine is a velocity of one centimeter per second.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun plural Cows.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun archaic or dialectal Plural form of
cow .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun domesticated bovine animals as a group regardless of sex or age
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word kine.
Examples
-
When she rocks in its cradle the babe the young parents intrust to her heed; when she calls the kine to the milking, the chicks to their corn; when she but flits through my room to renew the flowers on the stand, or range in neat order the books that I read, no spell on her fancy could lead her a step from the range of her provident cares!
A Strange Story — Volume 07 Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton 1838
-
When she rocks in its cradle the babe the young parents intrust to her heed; when she calls the kine to the milking, the chicks to their corn; when she but flits through my room to renew the flowers on the stand, or range in neat order the books that I read, no spell on her fancy could lead her a step from the range of her provident cares!
A Strange Story — Complete Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton 1838
-
The same are also called the congregation of bulls (from their rage against the Church) who assemble together all their kine, that is, the people their subjects, to exclude if they can, from Christ and his inheritance, his constant confessors, who are like silver tried by fire.
The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete The Challoner Revision Anonymous
-
The same are also called the congregation of bulls (from their rage against the Church) who assemble together all their kine, that is, the people their subjects, to exclude if they can, from Christ and his inheritance, his constant confessors, who are like silver tried by fire.
The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Book 21: Psalms The Challoner Revision
-
Those men who make gift of Kapila king with their calves and with vessel of white brass for milking them, -- kine, that is, which are not vicious and which while given away, are wrapped round with cloths, -- succeed in conquering both this and the other world.
The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 Books 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 Kisari Mohan [Translator] Ganguli
-
The same are also called the congregation of bulls (from their rage against the Church) who assemble together all their kine, that is, the people their subjects, to exclude if they can, from Christ and his inheritance, his constant confessors, who are like silver tried by fire.
The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete Anonymous
-
The same are also called the congregation of bulls (from their rage against the Church) who assemble together all their kine, that is, the people their subjects, to exclude if they can, from Christ and his inheritance, his constant confessors, who are like silver tried by fire.
-
The sacred and high pre-eminence and glory of kine, that is capable of cleansing one from every sin, has, O chief of men, been thus explained to thee.
The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 Books 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 Kisari Mohan [Translator] Ganguli
-
The true scientist may perhaps prefer that his kine should be the fat kine -- for he is but human -- but he does not desire them to be the only kine and to eat up all the rest.
Platform Monologues 1902
-
The air grew full of silence, the birds twittered sleepily, and from afar came, faint and clear, the musical song of the milkmaid calling the kine home to the milking.
The Adventures of Robin Hood Howard Pyle 1882
evin290 commented on the word kine
The only plural in the Enlgish language which doesn't share a single letter with its sigular form. :) (Plural for cow, by the way, Archaically.)
August 10, 2007
seanahan commented on the word kine
This follows the same pattern as swine.
August 10, 2007
uselessness commented on the word kine
Bizarre. I've never heard that before. Kine? Crazy.
August 10, 2007
oroboros commented on the word kine
"Da kine" is Hawaiian slang for "the best," "top flight," "creme de la creme" etc.
August 10, 2007
uselessness commented on the word kine
Assuming that Hawaiian version is pronounced "kee nay"?
August 10, 2007
bilby commented on the word kine
"Thus the cows create their own shade and food; and the tree, its hour-glass being inverted, lives a second life, as it were. It is an important question with some nowadays, whether you should trim young apple-trees as high as your nose or as high as your eyes. The ox trims them up as high as he can reach, and that is about the right height, I think. In spite of wandering kine and other adverse circumstance, that despised shrub, valued only by small birds as a covert and shelter from hawks, has its blossom-week at last, and in course of time its harvest, sincere, though small."
- Henry David Thoreau, 'Wild Apples'.
December 14, 2007
yarb commented on the word kine
The kine are all dead and under 7 cubits
of snow. The antlery tribes are stuck numb in drifts.
Your duds freeze stiff as you stand by the elm log blaze.
Brazen knick-knacks from Brum burst asunder with cold.
Icicles crackle in uncombed hairies' beavers.
It's really really rotten to be Rhyphaean.
Oenophiles give you Grands Cru by weight, not volume,
cleaving the frozen Lafite with their tomahawks.
- Peter Reading, Englished (iii. 349-83), from Diplopic, 1983
June 30, 2008
bilby commented on the word kine
"About him was a four-cornered cloth of purple, and an apple of gold was at each corner, and every one of the apples was of the value of an hundred kine. And there was precious gold of the value of three hundred kine upon his shoes, and upon his stirrups, from his knee to the tip of his toe."
- Thomas Bulfinch, 'Age of Fable'.
September 19, 2009
ruzuzu commented on the word kine
Are there any others that follow the same pattern as swine?
June 1, 2011
qroqqa commented on the word kine
Actually the pronouns mine and thine do, but kine doesn't. The -ine is the Germanic form of the adjective ending more familiar from Latin-derived equine, porcine, etc. Greek also had it*; crystalline is the only English inheritance of this that I can recall.
Kine on the other hand is a double plural: first by umlaut alone, ku: becoming ky:, then picking up the -n plural.
* Hm, apparently the -i- was short here, so perhaps not the same ending after all.
June 1, 2011
hernesheir commented on the word kine
cruggles: "a disease of young kine". --Dr. Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary and Supplement, 1841.
June 1, 2011
CheriRD commented on the word kine
I find the definition of 'weasel' curious -- does anyone know how that came about? or have an example of its use?
November 17, 2011