- a short thin piece of stiff wire with a sharp point at one end and a round head at the other, used especially for fastening together pieces of cloth when sewing
- Use pins to keep the patch in place while you sew it on.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- safety
- bobby
- hair
- …
- drive in
- insert
- stick in
- …
- a short thin piece of stiff wire with a sharp point at one end and an item of decoration at the other, worn as jewellery
- a diamond pin
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- safety
- bobby
- hair
- …
- drive in
- insert
- stick in
- …
- (especially North American English) (also brooch especially in British English)a piece of jewellery with a pin on the back of it, that can be fastened to your clothesOxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective
- lapel
- flag
- wear
- (especially North American English) a type of badge that is fastened with a pin at the back
- He supports the group and wears its pin on his lapel.
- an American flag lapel pin
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- lapel
- flag
- wear
- a piece of steel used to support a bone in your body when it has been broken
- The pin in her spine will have to be changed as she grows.
- one of the metal parts that stick out of an electric plug and fit into a socket
- a 2-pin plug
- a wooden or plastic object that is like a bottle in shape and that players try to knock down in games such as bowling see also ninepins, tenpin
- a stick with a flag on top of it, placed in a hole so that players can see where they are aiming for
- The ball stopped five feet short of the pin.
- pins[plural] (informal) a person’s legs
- He’s not as quick on his pins as he used to be.
- a small piece of metal on a hand grenade that stops it from exploding and is pulled out just before the hand grenade is thrown
for fastening/joining
jewellery
badge
medical
electrical
in games
in golf
legs
on small bomb
Word Originlate Old English pinn, of West Germanic origin; related to Dutch pin ‘pin, peg’, from Latin pinna ‘point, tip, edge’.
Idioms
See pin in the Oxford Advanced American DictionarySee pin in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic Englishbe on pins and needles (North American English)
(also (be) on tenterhooks British and North American English)
- (to be) very anxious or excited while you are waiting to find out something or see what will happen
- I've been on pins and needles all week waiting for the results.
for two pins
- (British English, old-fashioned) used to say that you would like to do something, even though you know that it would not be sensible
- I'd kill him for two pins.
- For two pins I’d tell her what I really think of her.
you could hear a pin drop
- it was extremely quiet
- The audience was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.
Check pronunciation:
pin