Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Pinion   /pˈɪnjən/   Listen
noun
Pinion  n.  (Zool.) A moth of the genus Lithophane, as Lithophane antennata, whose larva bores large holes in young peaches and apples.



Pinion  n.  
1.
A feather; a quill.
2.
A wing, literal or figurative. "Swift on his sooty pinions flits the gnome."
3.
The joint of bird's wing most remote from the body.
4.
A fetter for the arm.
5.
(Mech.) A cogwheel with a small number of teeth, or leaves, adapted to engage with a larger wheel, or rack (see Rack); esp., such a wheel having its leaves formed of the substance of the arbor or spindle which is its axis.
Lantern pinion. See under Lantern.
Pinion wire, wire fluted longitudinally, for making the pinions of clocks and watches. It is formed by being drawn through holes of the shape required for the leaves or teeth of the pinions.



verb
Pinion  v. t.  (past & past part. pinioned; pres. part. pinioning)  
1.
To bind or confine the wings of; to confine by binding the wings.
2.
To disable by cutting off the pinion joint.
3.
To disable or restrain, as a person, by binding the arms, esp. by binding the arms to the body. "Her elbows pinioned close upon her hips."
4.
Hence, generally, to confine; to bind; to tie up. "Pinioned up by formal rules of state."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Pinion" Quotes from Famous Books



... little excursion to Grindelwald and its glacier, and later an ascent of the Schynige Platte. Even a desperate horror of the rack and pinion railway up and down the steep mountain did not daunt the incomparable chaperone. (True, she closed her eyes and shrank as far away from the edge of eternity as possible, but she stuck manfully to her post.) He dined with them on the two ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... like Thor's sledge, And making the pigmy constables hedge— Ship's corporals and the master-at-arms. "In brig there, I say!"—They dally no more; Like hounds let slip on a desperate boar, Together they pounce on the formidable Finn, Pinion and cripple and hustle him in. Anon, under sentry, between twin guns, He slides off in drowse, ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville

... rudder stock, and with its rim supported on rollers, the quadrant does not impose upon the rudder pintles any of its own weight, thus diminishing the wear on these parts. This arrangement also keeps the quadrant always in good gear with its pinion, thereby allowing the teeth of both to be strengthened by shrouding, and rendering them exempt from the effects of sinking and slogger of the rudder stock as the pintles wear. The rack and pinions are of cast steel, as is also the tiller ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various

... thy annual reign Leads on th' autumnal tide, my pinion'd joys Fade with the glories of the fading year; "Remembrance wakes, with all her busy train," And bids affection heave the heart-drawn sigh O'er the cold tomb, rich with the spoils of death, And wet with many ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent

... to have some hopes that he would spare them; but all at once he gestured with his arms, whereon was a great gust of laughter and cheering, and divers men began rigging a wide plank out-board from the gangway amidships, whiles others hasted to pinion these still supplicating wretches. This done, they seized upon one, and hoisting him up on the plank with his face to the sea, betook them to pricking him with sword and pike, thus goading him to walk to his death. So this miserable, doomed man crept out along the ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol


More quotes...



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org