The spine is the line of bones down the middle of your back that supports your body and protects your spinal cord. It also refers to anything shaped like a backbone, such as the stiff edge of a book.
From Middle English “spine,” from Old French “espine,” from Latin “spina” meaning “thorn, backbone.” The original idea was a sharp point or thorn, which later became the word for the bony ridge of the back.
Your spine is literally your body’s ‘support column,’ and when we say someone has ‘no spine,’ we mean they lack courage or firmness. The same Latin root gave us both the bones in your back and the ‘spines’ on a cactus.
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