English

Noun

coign ‎(plural coigns)

1. A projecting corner or angle; a cornerstone
   • 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses

     Kind air defined the coigns of houses in Kildare street.

   • 1936, William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!!

     this snug monastic coign, this dreamy and heatless alcove of what we call the best of thought.

   • 1964, Anthony Burgess, Nothing Like the Sun

     They lay quietly as the morning advanced its little way, hid snug in their greenwood coign. —

   • 1977, Stephen R. Donaldson, Lord Foul's Bane, ISBN 0-345-34865-6, page 212

     The wall was intricately labored—lined and coigned and serried with regular and irregular groups of windows, balconies, buttresses ...

   • 2007, Stephen R. Donaldson, Fatal Revenant, ISBN 978-0-399-15446-1, page 3

     In sunshine as vivid as revelation, Linden Avery knelt on the stone of a low-walled coign like a balcony high in the outward face of Revelstone's watchtower.

2. The keystone of an arch
3. A wedge used in typesetting

Derived terms

• coign of vantage

Anagrams

• incog