coign

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a coign of vantage

dated A beneficial spot or position, especially for viewing something. "Coign" is an archaic spelling of "quoin," the outside corner of a building or wall. My office affords me a fine coign of vantage, as I can watch everyone on the floor without them knowing, You certainly have a nice coign of vantage up here, sir. You can see the entire courtyard all at once. Thanks to my coign of vantage, I know you're lying, Rosalie. I know you spoke to Paul earlier because I watched it from my window.

coign of vantage

a favourable position for observation or action. literary

The literal sense of a coign of vantage is ‘a projecting corner of a wall or building’; the phrase appears in Shakespeare 's Macbeth in Duncan's description of the nesting places of the swifts at Macbeth's castle. The word quoin meaning ‘an external angle of a building’ still exists in English, but the archaic spelling coign survives mainly in this phrase.

See also: coign, of, vantage

Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017

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References in periodicals archive ?

Surah 7:46 and 48 speak of a group of men who are situated in some coign of vantage from which they can observe both the blessed in heaven and the damned in hell: wa-baynahuma hijabun wa-ala l-arafi rijalun yarifu-na kullan bi-simahum wa-nadaw ashaba l-jannati an salamun alaykum lam yadkhuluha wa-hum note he rejects the explanations offered by the exegetes (see below), but admits that "onction" is not satisfactory, and suggests it might mean: "L'allure procuree par Dieu h I'homme converti au Monotheisme d'Abraham." Paret, p.

Some proposed emendations to the text of the Koran

In fact, Howth was extremely critical of Sidney: of his repeatedly promising but failing to deliver reform, of his abuse of the cess to the grievous detriment of the Pale, of his intent to abolish coign and livery, of his displacement of 'old' English lords from influence in the government of Ireland.

The Book of Howth: The Elizabethan Re-conquest of Ireland and the Old English

With over six months to go for the launch edition, confirmed participants include Arknav International, Aargus Global Logistics, Coign Consulting, Forbes and Co, Jaigad Ports and Infrastructure, Logistics India Real Estate, Online Tourism and Freight, as well as country pavilions from France, Belgium, Germany and China.

Holland Ports Will Feature a Pavilion at SITL India with Groningen Seaports, Port of Amsterdam, Port of Rotterdam and Zeeland Ports Participating

Once again, Swinburne begins his poem with a concentric landscape: In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland, At the sea-down's edge between windward and lee, Walled round with rocks as an inland island, The ghost of a garden fronts the sea.

Circles and the in-between: shaping time, space, and paradox in Swinburnian Verse

No jutty, frieze, Buttress, nor coign of vantage but this bird Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle.

"Strange things I have in head, that will to hand": echoes of sound and sense in Macbeth

In the poem "Kinoull Hill," the "we" referred to are set apart, virtually hiding from a cold, austere landscape: "We sat on the verge of the steep / In a coign where the east wind failed" (ll.

A sense of place: landscape and location in the poetry of John Davidson

In Strange Practice, it is observed how "London's lost rivers had taken on a romantic sort of mystery in popular awareness," and the narrator describes how they flow "through cathedrals of tile and brick, unseen arches and coigns of gorgeous complexity guiding and shaping their eventual journey" (Shaw 76).