A vee is a three-person relational configuration in which one person, called the hinge, is romantically connected to two other people who are not connected to each other. The shape of the letter V illustrates the structure: two arms extending from a central point. The two non-hinge partners are metamours to each other.
The vee is one of the most common configurations in polyamorous relationships, and one of the most straightforward to describe structurally. What varies enormously is how the three people involved relate to each other and to the structure itself. A vee might be kitchen table in style, with the two metamours genuinely knowing and enjoying each other, or it might be more parallel, with the two outside connections existing in relative separation.
The hinge position in a vee carries particular responsibility and particular reward. The hinge is the person who holds the thread connecting two otherwise separate relationships. They have the intimacy of two significant connections and also the work of maintaining those connections alongside each other. When the vee configuration is working well, the hinge has the capacity to be genuinely present in each relationship without one constantly spilling into the other.
Vees become more complex when the metamour relationship is strained. Because the two outside partners are connected only through the hinge, friction between them tends to travel through the hinge. This is one of the reasons that hinge partners in vees sometimes feel like mediators or pressure-regulators, particularly during conflicts or periods of insecurity.
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definition contributed by Tessakin