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Chambers (1908)

Fine

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[Fr.,—L. finitus, finished, from finīre, to finish, finis, an end.]

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Fine, fīn, adj. excellent: beautiful: not coarse or heavy: subtle: thin: slender: exquisite: nice: delicate: overdone: showy: splendid: striking or remarkable (often ironically): pure, refined: consisting of small particles; sharp, keen.—v.t. to make fine: to refine: to purify: to change by imperceptible degrees.—adv. (Scot.) for finely, well.—v.t. Fine′-draw, to draw or sew up a rent so finely that it is not seen.—p.adj. Fine′-drawn, drawn out too finely.—adj. Fine′ish, somewhat fine.—adv. Fine′ly.—ns. Fine′ness; Fin′er (same as Refiner); Fin′ery, splendour, fine or showy things: a place where anything is fined or refined: a furnace for making iron malleable.—adjs. Fine′-spok′en, using fine phrases; Fine′-spun, finely spun out: artfully contrived.—Fine arts, as painting, sculpture, music, those chiefly concerned with the beautiful—opp. to the Useful or Industrial arts. [Fr.,—L. finitus, finished, from finīre, to finish, finis, an end.]

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  • Historical scholarship from 1908; not current consensus or editorial verification.
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  • Chambers consulted earlier dictionaries including Skeat and the New English Dictionary; overlapping claims are not independent scholarly votes.

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Edition, rights and traceability

Chambers’s Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language
Thomas Davidson (editor)
1908

Public-domain-US ↗ · United States

Publisher marks these historical texts public domain in the USA. Transformed book text excludes Gutenberg branding; source attribution is a bibliographic acknowledgment. No non-US public-domain determination is made.

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