pin
/pɪn/ noun, verb
Forms pins pinning pinned PIN number
- noun A needle without an eye (usually) made of drawn-out steel wire with one end sharpened and the other flattened or rounded into a head, used for fastening.
- noun A small nail with a head and a sharp point.
- noun A cylindrical piece of solid material, often of wood or metal, used to fasten or as a bearing between two parts. “Pull the pin out of the grenade before throwing it at the enemy.”
- noun (wrestling, professional wrestling) The victory condition of holding the opponent's shoulders on the wrestling mat for a prescribed period of time.
- noun A slender object specially designed for use in a specific game or sport, such as skittles or bowling.
- noun (informal, in the plural) A leg. “I'm not so good on my pins these days.”
- noun (electricity) Any of the individual connecting elements of a multipole electrical connector. “The UK standard connector for domestic mains electricity has three pins.”
- noun A piece of jewellery that is attached to clothing with a pin.
- verb (often followed by a preposition such as "to" or "on") To fasten or attach (something) with a pin.
- verb (chess, usually passive voice) To cause (a piece) to be in a pin.
- verb (wrestling) To pin down (someone). “He pinned his opponent on the mat.”
- verb To enclose; to confine; to pen; to pound.
- verb (graphical user interface, transitive) To attach (an icon, application, message etc.) to another item so that it persists. “to pin a folder to the taskbar”
- verb (programming, transitive) To fix (an array in memory, a security certificate, etc.) so that it cannot be modified. “When marshaling data, the interop marshaler can copy or pin the data being marshaled.”
- verb (transitive) To cause an analog gauge to reach the stop pin at the high end of the range.
- verb (bodybuilding, slang, ambitransitive) To inject for performance enhancement.
- noun A cataract of the eye.
Synonyms
nail tack peg brooch lapel pin badge skittle fall personal identification number PIN number stick pivot pin tumbler flag thole tholepin rowlock oarlock bowling pin trap immobilize immobilise
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English pinne, from Old English pinn (“pin, peg, bolt”), from Proto-Germanic *pinnaz, *pinnō, *pint- (“protruding point, peak, peg, pin, nail”), from Proto-Indo-European *bend- (“protruding object, pointed peg, nail, edge”). Related to pen (“enclosure”).
Cognate with Dutch pin (“peg, pin”), Low German pin, pinne (“pin, point, nail, peg”), German Pinn, Pinne (“pin, tack, peg”), Bavarian Pfonzer, Pfunzer (“sharpened point”), Danish pind (“pin, pointed stick”), Norwegian pinn (“stick”), Swedish pinne (“peg, rod, stick”), Icelandic pinni (“pin”). More at pintle.
No relation to classical Latin pinna (“fin, flipper, wing-like appendage, wing, feather”), which was extended to mean "ridge, peak, point" (compare pinnacle), and often confused with Latin penna (“wing, feather”). More at feather and pen (Etymology 3).
Webster’s 1913
- verb To peen.
- verb To inclose; to confine; to pen; to pound.
- noun 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.
- noun Especially, a small, pointed and headed piece of brass or other wire (commonly tinned), largely used for fastening clothes, attaching papers, etc.
Etymology [Cf. Pen to confine, or Pinfold.]
Etymology [OE. pinne, AS. pinn a pin, peg; cf. D. pin, G. pinne, Icel. pinni, W. pin, Gael. & Ir. pinne; all fr. L. pinna a pinnacle, pin, feather, perhaps orig. a different word from pinna feather. Cf. Fin of a fish, Pen a feather.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “pin”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details