Definitions
Fine: quite well, good.
Ex. I feel fine today.
Fine: thin, of excellent quality, delicate.
Ex. Fine sand, fine wine, fine cotton.
Also
A fine: a financial penalty.
To fine: to penalize monetarily.
Ex: see next section.
Fines in the News
This month, Google (motto: “Don’t be evil”) was fined €4.34bn by the EU for imposing their search engine on smartphones.
There’s a fine line between being a profitable tech giant and a greedy imperialistic monster.
Fine idioms
The fine print. Small letters in a contract. Apparently Google didn’t read the fine print about competition law.
A fine mess. Chaos or confusion. See: Trump’s foreign visits, Brexit, the Champs-Elysées after the World Cup final.
Fine tech
+ Google is free.
– You pay with your personal data.
+ Apple is user-friendly.
– You pay an arm and a leg.
+ Facebook connects people.
– Your uncle sent me a friend request.
+ Amazon ships everything.
– Your local shops are closing.
Fine with you?