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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
sinew
noun
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ The plan was designed to provide the sinews of enhanced military power.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ My son feels long and stringy now, all sinew, veins and bone.
▪ Rope is the sinew of any sailing vessel.
▪ She could feel every bone and sinew of him.
▪ She shifted restlessly beneath him, her heart pounding out of control as she registered the powerful interplay of muscle and sinew.
▪ Then he prophesied to them and made flesh and sinews come around them.
▪ They sketched a woman whose chest had been carefully cut open to reveal muscle and sinew.
▪ Trim all excess fat and sinew from roast.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Sinew

Sinew \Sin"ew\, n. [OE. sinewe, senewe, AS. sinu, seonu; akin to D. zenuw, OHG. senawa, G. sehne, Icel. sin, Sw. sena, Dan. sene; cf. Skr. sn[=a]va. [root]290.]

  1. (Anat.) A tendon or tendonous tissue. See Tendon.

  2. Muscle; nerve. [R.]
    --Sir J. Davies.

  3. Fig.: That which supplies strength or power.

    The portion and sinew of her fortune, her marriage dowry.
    --Shak.

    The bodies of men, munition, and money, may justly be called the sinews of war.
    --Sir W. Raleigh.

    Note: Money alone is often called the sinews of war.

Sinew

Sinew \Sin"ew\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Sinewed; p. pr. & vb. n. Sinewing.] To knit together, or make strong with, or as with, sinews.
--Shak.

Wretches, now stuck up for long tortures . . . might, if properly treated, serve to sinew the state in time of danger.
--Goldsmith.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
sinew

Old English seonowe, oblique form of nominative sionu "sinew," from Proto-Germanic *senawo (cognates: Old Saxon sinewa, Old Norse sina, Old Frisian sine, Middle Dutch senuwe, Dutch zenuw, Old High German senawa, German Sehne), from PIE root *sai- "to tie, bind" (cognates: Sanskrit snavah "sinew," Avestan snavar, Irish sin "chain").

Wiktionary
sinew

n. 1 (context anatomy English) A cord or tendon of the body. 2 (context obsolete English) A nerve. 3 (context figuratively English) muscle; nerve; nervous energy; vigor; vigorous strength; muscular power. 4 A string or chord, as of a musical instrument. 5 (context figuratively English) That which gives strength or in which strength consists; a supporting member or factor; mainstay; source of strength (often plural). vb. To knit together, or make strong with, or as if with, sinews.

WordNet
sinew
  1. n. a cord or band of inelastic tissue connecting a muscle with its bony attachment [syn: tendon]

  2. muscular strength [syn: brawn, muscle]

Usage examples of "sinew".

A rabbit snare is made of fine babiche, sinew, cord, or wire, and the loop is hung over a rabbit runway just high enough to catch it round the neck.

He then tied the baleen, tensed as it was, together with some stout tabuk sinew.

Bit by bit, loosened molecule by loosened molecule, in accordance with the patient, relentless laws of chemistry, the sinew slowly dissolved, weakening the bond which held the compressed, contorted, sharpened baleen, until the slender bond broke.

He sang a kayak-making song, customarily sung to the leather, wood and sinew, with which he worked, that it not betray him in the polar sea.

If the damned knee was going to stiffen, let it stiffen in the bad directions, not the good one, let it stiffen so it could no longer make the motion to the side that would tear the sinews and betray the balance.

I but reach them they would make at least a drier bed than this of mine, and at that thought, turning over, I found all my muscles as stiff as iron, the sinews of my neck and forearms a mass of agonies and no more fit to swim me to those reedy swamps, which now, as pain and hunger began to tell, seemed to wear the aspects of paradise.

The flesh of these persons was entire and undecayed, of a brown dryish colour, produced by time, the flesh having adhered closely to the bones and sinews.

The eland antelope has a peculiar characteristic, unique in the African wild: the mighty sinews in its legs make a strange click with each step it takes.

In his left hand he held a short spear, the blade of which seemed to be fashioned of chipped flint, or some other hard and shining stone, and in the girdle of his kilt was thrust a wooden-handled instrument or ax, made by setting a great, sharp-edged stone that must have weighed two pounds or so into the cleft end of the handle which was lashed with sinews both above and below the axhead.

These splinters she fashioned into needles, boring an eye in the head of them with a sharp and heated flint, and threading the sinews through them, began to sew in a fashion such as Pag had never seen.

Then, from the prepared flint nodules he had with him, Jondalar knapped new blades and attached them to the spear shafts with the thick glue he had made as a coating for the boat, and fresh sinew.

He lowered his head and slipped the thin cord of sinew from about his neck, offering the ongon to Yeb.

Cold rheum, and hot podagra, do but look on him, And quit their grasp upon the tortured sinews.

Here was Sapling, for instance, his spear-thrower slung over his back on a length of sinew, his pale eyes clouded as he watched the woman who had taught him so much.

The frame was sawn from sections of whale rib, pegged together and tied with sinews.