Spine

How to spell spine

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce spine

What does spine mean?

1. nounThe column of vertebrae running down the back of a human or animal; the backbone.
2. nounThe firm back edge of a book where the pages are bound together, often printed with the title.
3. nounA stiff, sharp, pointed structure on a plant or animal, such as a thorn or quill.

Spine in a sentence

• The fall left a hairline fracture in her lower spine.

• The title was printed in gold along the spine of the volume.

• Each cactus spine can pierce a gardening glove.

• Good posture keeps the spine properly aligned at a desk.

• Years of reading had cracked the spine of the paperback.

• The hedgehog raised every spine when it sensed danger.

Where does spine come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin spina, which meant a thorn, a prickle, or a sharp point, and which was also used figuratively for the row of pointed bones running down an animal's back. Romans evidently saw the knobbly ridge of the vertebrae as a line of little thorns, so the same word covered both the prickle on a plant and the backbone of a body. English borrowed it through Old French in the fourteenth century, first in the anatomical sense of the backbone and soon afterwards for any stiff, pointed projection on a plant or animal. The bookbinding sense, the firm strip along the back of a book where the pages are joined, is a later figurative use that pictures the volume as having its own backbone. The simple spelling rarely traps adults, although the silent shaping of the long 'i' through a final 'e' is the only thing to watch.

How the word is built

• spine (from Latin spina: thorn, backbone); a single unanalysable root noun in English