pin

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A short, thin piece of metal with a sharp point, used to fasten things together.

   She fastened the two pieces of fabric with a pin.

2. 2
   noun

   A secret number you use to get money from a machine or to access an account.

   Don't tell anyone your bank card pin.

3. 3
   verb

   To fasten or attach something using a pin.

   He pinned the notice to the board.

4. 4
   verb

   To hold someone or something firmly in place so they cannot move.

   The fallen tree pinned him to the ground.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Pin was borrowed from Latin by the Anglo-Saxons before their settlement of Britain. Its source is Latin pinna, “feather,” which also developed the meanings “point, tip, edge” and then “peg,” the earliest English sense. The familiar sense “thin metal fastener” is recorded by 1275.

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 classica…

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary