Fine

Fine - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

FINE, a.

1. Small; thin; slender; minute; of very small diameter; as a fine thread; fine silk; a fine hair. We say also, fine sand, fine particles.

2. Subtil; thin; tenuous; as, fine spirits evaporate; a finer medium opposed to a grosser.

3. Thin; keep; smoothly sharp; as the fine edge of a razor.

4. Made of fine threads; not coarse; as fine linen or cambric.

5. Clear; pure; free from feculence or foreign matter; as fine gold or silver; wine is not good till fine.

6. Refined.

Those things were too fine to be fortunate, and succeed in all parts.

7. Nice; delicate; perceiving or discerning minute beauties or deformities; as a fine taste; a fine sense.

8. Subtil; artful; dextrous. [See Finess.]

9. Subtil; sly; fraudulent.

10. Elegant; beautiful in thought.

To call the trumpet by the name of the metal was fine.

11. Very handsome; beautiful with dignity.

The lady has a fine person, or a fine face.

12. Accomplished; elegant in manners. He was one of the finest gentlemen of his age.

13. Accomplished in learning; excellent; as a fine scholar.

14. Excellent; superior; brilliant or acute; as a man of fine genius.

15. Amiable; noble; ingenuous; excellent; as a man of a fine mind.

16. Showy; splendid; elegant; as a range of fine buildings; a fine house or garden; a fine view.

17. Ironically, worthy of contemptuous notice; eminent for bad qualities.

That same knave, Ford, her husband, has the finest mad devil of jealousy in him, Master Brook, that ever governed frenzy.

Fine Arts or polite arts, are the arts which depend chiefly on the labors of the mind or imagination, and whose object is pleasure; as poetry, music, painting and sculpture.

The uses of this word are so numerous and indefinite, as to preclude a particular definition of each. In general, fine, in popular language, expresses whatever is excellent, showy or magnificent.

FINE, n. [This word is the basis of finance, but I have not found it, in its simple form, in any modern language, except the English. The word seems to be the L. finis, and the application of it to pecuniary compensation seems to have proceeded from its feudal use, in the transfer of lands, in which a final agreement or concord was made between the lord and his vassal.]

1. In a feudal sense, a final agreement between persons concerning lands or rents, or between the lord and his vassal, prescribing the conditions on which the latter should hold his lands.

2. A sum of money paid to the lord by his tenant, for permission to alienate or transfer his lands to another. This in England was exacted only from the king's tenants in capite.

3. A sum of money paid to the king or state by way of penalty for an offense; a mulet; a pecuniary punishment. Fines are usually prescribed by statute, for the several violations of law; or the limit is prescribed, beyond which the judge cannot impose a fine for a particular offense.

In fine. [L. in and finis.] In the end or conclusion; to conclude; to sum up all.

FINE, v.t. [See Fine, the adjective.]

1. To clarify; to refine; to purify; to defecate; to free from feculence or foreign matter; as, to fine wine.

[This is the most general use of this word.]

2. To purify, as a metal; as, to fine gold or silver. In this sense, we now generally use refine; but fine is proper.

Job 28. Prov 17.

3. To make less coarse; as, to fine grass. [Not used.]

4. To decorate; to adorn. [Not in use.]

FINE, v.t. [See Fine, the noun.]

1. To impose on one a pecuniary penalty, payable to the government, for a crime or breach of law; to set a fine on by judgment of a court; to punish by fine. The trespassers were fined ten dollars and imprisoned a month.

2. v.i. To pay a fine. [Not used.]

fin (adj., from Latin finire, "to finish"):

Indicates superior quality. Only in a few instances does "fine" represent a separate word: (1) Tobh, "good," qualifies gold (2Ch 3:5,8, "fine gold"; compare Ge 2:12, "good"); fine gold (La 4:1, the King James Version "most fine gold," the Revised Version (British and American) "most pure gold," literally, "good fine gold"), copper (Ezr 8:27, the Revised Version (British and American) "fine bright brass"); Tabh, Aramaic (Da 2:32, "fine gold"). (2) paz, "refined" (So 5:11, "the most fine gold"). (3) chelebh, "fatness," "the best of any kind"; compare Ge 45:18; De 32:14, etc. (Ps 81:16, "the finest of the wheat," the Revised Version, margin Hebrew "fat of wheat"). (4) sariq, "fine combed" (Isa 19:9, "fine flax," the Revised Version (British and American) "combed flax").

In other places it expresses a quality of the substantive: kethem, "fine gold" (Job 31:24; Da 10:5, the Revised Version (British and American) "pure gold"); paz, used as a noun for refined gold (Job 28:17; Ps 19:10; Pr 8:19; Isa 13:12; La 4:2); charuts, "fine gold" (Pr 3:14; compare Ps 68:13, "yellow gold"); coleth, "flour," rendered "fine flour," rolled or crushed small (Le 2:1,4,5,7, etc.); semidalis, "the finest wheaten flour" (Re 18:13); qemach coleth, "fine meal" (Ge 18:6); cadhin, "linen garment" (Septuagint sindon, Pr 31:24 the King James Version; Isa 3:23); shesh, "white," "fine linen" (Ge 41:42; Ex 25:4, etc.); in Pr 31:22 the King James Version has "silk"; sheshi (Eze 16:13, "fine flour"); 'eTun, "what is twisted or spun," "yarn" (Pr 7:16 the King James Version, "fine linen of Egypt" the Revised Version (British and American) "yarn of Egypt"); buts, "fine white cloth," "cotton or linen," "fine linen" (1Ch 4:21; Eze 27:16, etc.; 2Ch 5:12, King James Version "white," the Revised Version (British and American) "fine"); bussos, "byssus," "linen" from buts Septuagint for which, 2Ch 2:14; 3:14), deemed very fine and precious, worn only by the rich (Lu 16:19; Re 18:12); bussinos, "byssine" made of fine linen, Septuagint for buts (1Ch 5:27) (Re 18:16, "clothed in fine linen," the Revised Version (British and American) "arrayed," Re 19:8,14); sindon, "fine linen" (Mr 5:46, "He bought fine linen," the Revised Version (British and American) "a linen cloth"; compare Mr 14:51,52; Mt 27:59; Lu 23:53); it was used for wrapping the body at night, also for wrapping round dead bodies; sindon is Septuagint for cadhin (Jud 14:12,13; Pr 31:24); chalkolibanon (Re 1:15; 2:18, the King James Version "fine brass").

The meaning of this word has been much discussed; chalkos is "brass" in Greek (with many compounds), and libanos is the Septuagint for lebhonah, "frankincense," which word was probably derived from the root labhan, "to burn"; this would give glowing brass, "as if they burned in a furnace"; in Da 10:6 it is nehosheth qalal, the King James Version "polished brass," the Revised Version (British and American) "burnished" (qalal is "to glow"). Plumptre deemed it a hybrid word composed of the Greek chalkos, "brass," and the Hebrew labhan, "white," a technical word, such as might be familiar to the Ephesians; the Revised Version (British and American) has "burnished brass"; Weymouth, "silver-bronze when it is white-hot in a furnace"; the whiteness being expressed by the second half of the Greek word. See Thayer's Lexicon (s.v.).

In Apocrypha we have "fine linen," bussinos (1 Esdras 3:6), "fine bread"; the adjective katharos, separate ( /APC Judith 10:5, the Revised Version, margin "pure bread"); "fine flour" (Ecclesiasticus 35:2; 38:11); semidalis (Bel and the Dragon verse 3; /APC 2Macc 1:8, the Revised Version (British and American) "meal offering").

W. L. Walker