pin
Pronunciation: /pɪn/
The English word “pin” has 20 meanings listed here.
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.
- A small nail with a head and a sharp point.
- A cylindrical piece of solid material, often of wood or metal, used to fasten or as a bearing between two parts.
- The victory condition of holding the opponent's shoulders on the wrestling mat for a prescribed period of time.
- A slender object specially designed for use in a specific game or sport, such as skittles or bowling.
- A leg.
- Any of the individual connecting elements of a multipole electrical connector.
- A piece of jewellery that is attached to clothing with a pin.
- A simple accessory that can be attached to clothing with a pin or fastener, often round and bearing a design, logo or message, and used for decoration, identification or to show political affiliation, etc.
- Either a scenario in which moving a lesser piece to escape from attack would expose a more valuable piece to being taken instead, or one where moving a piece is impossible as it would place the king in check.
- The flagstick: the flag-bearing pole which marks the location of a hole
- The spot at the exact centre of the house (the target area)
- The spot at the exact centre of the target, originally a literal pin that fastened the target in place.
- A mood, a state of being.
- One of a row of pegs in the side of an ancient drinking cup to mark how much each person should drink.
- Caligo.
- A thing of small value; a trifle.
- A peg in musical instruments for increasing or relaxing the tension of the strings.
- A short shaft, sometimes forming a bolt, a part of which serves as a journal.
- The tenon of a dovetail joint.
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”),…
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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.