chevron

noun

1. A V-shaped pattern; used in architecture, and as an insignia of military or police rank, on the sleeve.
2. A wide inverted V placed on a shield.
3. (British)One of the V-shaped markings on the surface of roads used to indicate minimum distances between vehicles.

   “2009, Jamie Dunn, Truckie has a point, Sunshine Coast Daily Online, June 13, 2009. I told you that in fact they were called chevrons and it was an exercise by the transport department to teach us to stay two chevrons behind the car in front.”

4. A guillemet, either of the punctuation marks “«” or “»”, used in several languages to indicate passages of speech. Similar to typical quotation marks used in the English language such as ““” and “””.
5. An angle bracket, either used as a typographic or a scientific symbol.
6. (informal)A háček, a diacritical mark that may resemble an inverted circumflex.

   “It is pertinent to remember, however, that one of the greatest phoneticians, Jan Hus, used diacritics (in the form of points, which have later become chevrons in his own language), and that his alphabet is the most satisfactory for eastern Europe, since it has been officially adopted by the languages which use the Latin script.”

   “The symbol ř (“r” with a chevron) is used for a phoneme which sounds like Czech ř (as in Dvořák), i.e. a voiced alveolar flap. The presence of the chevron has no effect on the index numbers used in transliteration; cf. 2.058.”

7. A wedge-shaped sediment deposit observed on coastlines and continental interiors around the world.
8. Synonym of arrowhead (“horse jump obstacle”).

verb

1. To form or be formed into chevrons

   “...the sheet to be chevroned locks itself into the furrow.”

   “... as a thick finger with a gob of very slippery jelly or cream comes sliding down the crack now towards his asshole, chevroning the hairs along like topo lines up a river valley...”

   “Bull fixed the claw under a batten, strained like a sailor at the capstan, shirt off, arms chevroned by elaborate tattoos.”

   “Earlier, in glaring winter daylight, i'd first noticed thin lines chevroning off the edge of each eye into the taut skin of his cheeks...”