Pins Idioms

Several words have become part of the language in being used in phrases. Last time we looked at ‘head’ and now look at ‘pins’.

Pin is used as slang for ‘leg’ as early as 1520.

Pins is used to describe the target to be knocked down by the 1570s.

Pin money originally referred to the annual sum allocated for a woman to spend on her attire, and seen as such since the 1620s.

Pins and needles describes a tingling sensation from 1810.

The sound of pin dropping to refer to near silence is seen from 1775.

Pin down meaning ‘define’ dates from 1951.

PIN as in Personal Identification Number has been seen since 1981.

Pinwheel is seen from 1690, when it referred to a part of the clock. In reference to a firework, it is found from 1869.

Ninepins is a game seen since 1570 – the game also recorded as ninepegs and nineholes.

Tenpins is recorded from 1600.

Pinball is a game played and known as such since 1907, although it took another thirty years before the pinball machine made its debut.

Pinstripe cloth has been recorded since 1882.

Homonyms, Etymologically Speaking: N

Many words have two meanings, sometimes more, which are often very different. Such words have identical spelling and pronunciation, they are known as homonyms. Here I continue an A to Z list of such words and look at how that word came to have two different meanings.

N is for nail, the metal fixing used by carpenters and those things you file, clip, paint, or nibble on the ends of one's digits. Undoubtedly the earliest nails used in carpentry were not simply tapered but deliberately curved. There is a school of thought that these were designed on the nails of birds of prey (we would refer to them as talons). In which case these have identical origins in Proto-Indo-European nogh 'nail of the finger or toe'. This is given some weight by the Greek onyx meaning both 'claw' and 'fingernail' (similarly seen in Latin, Old Irish, Lithuanian, Old Welsh, and Old Church Slavonic).

Terms derived from 'nail' included 'hard as nails', first recorded in 1828; hit the nail on the head, first seen in 1520; on the nail, from 1590; and also the measurement 'a nail' which was on the end of a yardstick used by dealers in cloth and measured approximately 2.1/4 inches.