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Pin   /pɪn/   Listen
noun
Pin  n.  
1.
A piece of wood, metal, etc., generally cylindrical, used for fastening separate articles together, or as a support by which one article may be suspended from another; a peg; a bolt. "With pins of adamant And chains they made all fast."
2.
Especially, a small, pointed and headed piece of brass or other wire (commonly tinned), largely used for fastening clothes, attaching papers, etc.
3.
Hence, a thing of small value; a trifle. "He... did not care a pin for her."
4.
That which resembles a pin in its form or use; as:
(a)
A peg in musical instruments, for increasing or relaxing the tension of the strings.
(b)
A linchpin.
(c)
A rolling-pin.
(d)
A clothespin.
(e)
(Mach.) A short shaft, sometimes forming a bolt, a part of which serves as a journal.
(f)
(Joinery) The tenon of a dovetail joint.
5.
One of a row of pegs in the side of an ancient drinking cup to mark how much each man should drink.
6.
The bull's eye, or center, of a target; hence, the center. (Obs.) "The very pin of his heart cleft."
7.
Mood; humor. (Obs.) "In merry pin."
8.
(Med.) Caligo. See Caligo.
9.
An ornament, as a brooch or badge, fastened to the clothing by a pin; as, a Masonic pin.
10.
The leg; as, to knock one off his pins. (Slang)
Banking pin (Horol.), a pin against which a lever strikes, to limit its motion.
Pin drill (Mech.), a drill with a central pin or projection to enter a hole, for enlarging the hole, or for sinking a recess for the head of a bolt, etc.; a counterbore.
Pin grass. (Bot.) See Alfilaria.
Pin hole, a small hole made by a pin; hence, any very small aperture or perforation.
Pin lock, a lock having a cylindrical bolt; a lock in which pins, arranged by the key, are used instead of tumblers.
Pin money, an allowance of money, as that made by a husband to his wife, for private and personal expenditure.
Pin rail (Naut.), a rail, usually within the bulwarks, to hold belaying pins. Sometimes applied to the fife rail. Called also pin rack.
Pin wheel.
(a)
A contrate wheel in which the cogs are cylindrical pins.
(b)
(Fireworks) A small coil which revolves on a common pin and makes a wheel of yellow or colored fire.



verb
Pin  v. t.  (Metal Working) To peen.



Pin  v. t.  To inclose; to confine; to pen; to pound.



Pin  v. t.  (past & past part. pinned; pres. part. pinning)  To fasten with, or as with, a pin; to join; as, to pin a garment; to pin boards together. "As if she would pin her to her heart."
To pin one's faith upon, to depend upon; to trust to.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pin" Quotes from Famous Books



... herself, first substituting her own feeling for the Beggar's, and in the same breath detecting the fallacy, will not part with the wish. The "Poet's Epitaph" is disfigured, to my taste, by the common satire upon parsons and lawyers in the beginning, and the coarse epithet of "pin-point," in the sixth stanza. All the rest is eminently good, and your own. I will just add that it appears to me a fault in the "Beggar" that the instructions conveyed in it are too direct, and like ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... discarded the garb which Mr. Peaslee regarded as sacred. He was not in black. Instead, he wore a light gray business suit, his collar was very knowing in cut, and his cravat of dark blue was caught with a gold pin. ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson

... clouded, for she had just learned of Serviss's departure and was deeply hurt. She drew the pin from her hat and silently laid it on the table, and in this gesture was something of the resolution of the warrior who divests himself of his cumbering plumed helmet. "It's very simple," she curtly answered. "I want to get away from here for a ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... white dress, of a kind which suited Lucy very well, and which she was in the habit of wearing for small home parties, at which full dress was unnecessary. He looked at her from head to foot, and gave a little pull to her skirt with a doubtful air. "It doesn't sit, does it?" he said; "can't you pin it, or something, to make it ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant

... with the hands in running water, a little of it at a time, placed upon a slightly concave stone, called a metlate, from the Aztec metlatl, on which it is rubbed with another stone shaped like a rolling-pin. A little water is thrown on it as it is bruised, and it is thus formed into paste. A ball of the paste is taken and flattened out between the hands into a cake about ten inches diameter and three-sixteenths ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt


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