Quoin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Generally, a quoin is a wedge, used to support or anchor other items. More specifically, quoin may refer to:
- In architecture, quoins are the corner stones that anchor the edge of the building wall.
- In printing, quoins are wedges used by printers to hold the hand-set type in place in a printer's chase. It is sometimes claimed that this is the origin and true spelling of the expression "to coin a phrase," (i.e., "to quoin a phrase"), but a simple check of the history of the words in the Oxford English Dictionary shows this claim to be bogus.
- In naval warfare, a quoin was a wedge manipulated at the breech end of a cannon to raise or lower the barrel.
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