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Pin   Listen
noun
Pin  n.  
1.
A piece of wood, metal, etc., generally cylindrical, used for fastening separate articles together, or as a support by which one article may be suspended from another; a peg; a bolt. "With pins of adamant And chains they made all fast."
2.
Especially, a small, pointed and headed piece of brass or other wire (commonly tinned), largely used for fastening clothes, attaching papers, etc.
3.
Hence, a thing of small value; a trifle. "He... did not care a pin for her."
4.
That which resembles a pin in its form or use; as:
(a)
A peg in musical instruments, for increasing or relaxing the tension of the strings.
(b)
A linchpin.
(c)
A rolling-pin.
(d)
A clothespin.
(e)
(Mach.) A short shaft, sometimes forming a bolt, a part of which serves as a journal.
(f)
(Joinery) The tenon of a dovetail joint.
5.
One of a row of pegs in the side of an ancient drinking cup to mark how much each man should drink.
6.
The bull's eye, or center, of a target; hence, the center. (Obs.) "The very pin of his heart cleft."
7.
Mood; humor. (Obs.) "In merry pin."
8.
(Med.) Caligo. See Caligo.
9.
An ornament, as a brooch or badge, fastened to the clothing by a pin; as, a Masonic pin.
10.
The leg; as, to knock one off his pins. (Slang)
Banking pin (Horol.), a pin against which a lever strikes, to limit its motion.
Pin drill (Mech.), a drill with a central pin or projection to enter a hole, for enlarging the hole, or for sinking a recess for the head of a bolt, etc.; a counterbore.
Pin grass. (Bot.) See Alfilaria.
Pin hole, a small hole made by a pin; hence, any very small aperture or perforation.
Pin lock, a lock having a cylindrical bolt; a lock in which pins, arranged by the key, are used instead of tumblers.
Pin money, an allowance of money, as that made by a husband to his wife, for private and personal expenditure.
Pin rail (Naut.), a rail, usually within the bulwarks, to hold belaying pins. Sometimes applied to the fife rail. Called also pin rack.
Pin wheel.
(a)
A contrate wheel in which the cogs are cylindrical pins.
(b)
(Fireworks) A small coil which revolves on a common pin and makes a wheel of yellow or colored fire.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pin" Quotes from Famous Books



... debated and passed over. Snorky then produced a formidable document tied in green ribbons with large wax seals, stamped with a cameo stick-pin. ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson

... suddenly into brigands stopping diligences, the marriage of the heroine Annette with a retired pirate marquis of vast wealth, the trial of the latter for murdering another marquis with a poisoned fish-bone scarf-pin, his execution, the sanguinary reprisals by his redoubtable lieutenant, and a finale of blunderbusses, fire, devoted peasant girl with retrousse nose, ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac

... to," he said; "If being engaged is going to pin you down, then I don't think you ought to be engaged. You've had enough of that in ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... sight-seeing, that we did little but sit in-doors, with open windows, and talk. The only thing she made a point of exerting herself to procure was a present for Tabby. It was to be a shawl, or rather a large handkerchief, such as she could pin across her neck and shoulders, in the old-fashioned country manner. Miss Bronte took great pains in seeking out one which she thought would please the old woman. On her arrival at home, she addressed the following letter to the friend with whom she ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... quit his station on the bottom of the boat, and walk round her. He then righted her, and discovered that the mast had been carried away close to the step, but, with the sail, still remained fast to the boat by the main-sheet, which had jammed on the belaying pin, so that it still was serviceable. Everything else had been lost out of the boat, except the grapnel, which had been bent, and which hanging down in the water, from the boat being capsized, had brought it up when it was floated on the sand-bank. ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat

... successful, and wonders in culinary art might be expected. Wilson had a good idea to begin with, which he had skilfully carried out; for when Glenarvan came back to the brasier, he found that the brave fellow had actually managed to catch, with only a pin and a piece of string, several dozen small fish, as delicate as smelts, called MOJARRAS, which were all jumping about in a fold of his poncho, ready to be converted into an ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... of the worship, and before the blessing, I addressed them in a fatherly manner; and, although the kirk was fuller than ever I saw it before, the fall of a pin might have been heard—at the conclusion there was a sobbing ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt

... himself; and if a pin had fallen to the floor then, it might have been heard in the anxious silence that followed. Mr. Parasyte's chest heaved with emotion. He wanted to storm, and scold, and threaten, but seemed to ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic

... was Reginald and there was a Good boy whose Name was James. Reginald would go Fishing when his Mamma told him Not to, and he Cut off the Cat's Tail with the Bread Knife one Day, and then told Mamma the Baby had Driven it in with the Rolling Pin, which was a Lie. James was always Obedient, and when his Mamma told him not to Help an old Blind Man across the street or Go into a Dark Room where the Boogies were, he always Did What She said. That is why they Called him Good James. Well, by and by, along Came Christmas. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various

... the deftness of her taper fingers, the sweep of her dark lashes on her cheek as from the height of her step she looked down at her companion, the curves of her beautiful mouth that at the moment was daintly holding a pin with which the end of the spray was to be fastened upon the front of the other's white dress. It was certainly effective there. Yet none of the three men noticed this, or saw that between the two girls the question as to ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various

... I 'there's sprightly doin's hereabouts. I'll tarry a while and see 'em singe the fowl. I like the smell of burning pin feathers; it ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach

... long enough how to use the sewing machine. First they made a little pair of trousers out of an old gray woolen skirt of Aunt Abigail's. This was for practice, before they cut into the piece of new blue serge that the storekeeper had sent up. Cousin Ann showed them how to pin the pattern on the goods and they each cut out one piece. Those flat, queer-shaped pieces of cloth certainly did look less like a pair of trousers to Betsy than anything she had ever seen. Then one of the girls read aloud very slowly the mysterious- ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield

... BEDSTAFF, (?) wooden pin in the side of the bedstead for supporting the bedclothes (Johnson); one of the sticks or "laths"; a stick used in ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson

... tying Laura's future up to mine," Dick told himself savagely, as he took a lonely stroll one March afternoon. "I'll have nothing but my pay, if I do graduate. A fellow like Cameron can allow his wife more for pin money than my whole years pay will come to. Really, I've no right to marry any but a rich girl, who has her own income. And, even if I fell in love with a rich girl, I wouldn't have the nerve to propose to her. I'd feel ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock

... none of the pride in a job well done, such as was enjoyed by the savage when he had made his bow or caught his fish; those who work all day on some minute process necessary, among many others, to the turning out of a pin, can never feel the full joy of achievement such as is gained by a man who has made the whole of anything. Pins are made much faster, but some of the men who make them remain machines, and never become ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers

... the miracle. The Latins take a great deal of pains to expose this ceremony as a most shameful imposture and a scandal to the Christian religion,—perhaps out of envy that others should be masters of so gainful a business. But the Greeks and Armenians pin their faith upon it; such is the deplorable unhappiness of their priests, that having acted the cheat so long already, they are forced now to stand to it for fear of endangering the apostacy of their people. Going ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... a small iron pin and tossed it at the spot where I felt sure the islander was hiding. I didn't throw the pin with any force, although the yell that came out of the shadow would convince an onlooker that I had ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer

... in a state of constant activity; great preparations are making for the approaching festivities. The starost has displayed an unexampled generosity; he has made us all the most beautiful presents. He has given me a turquoise pin; Sophia has received a ruby cross; Mary, a Venetian chain, and even my parents have condescended to accept gifts from him. My father has a silver-gilt goblet, admirably chased; and my mother, a beautiful box made of mother-of-pearl mounted in gold. Even ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... out from behind my back. You see I was feeling funny again. Then I started to slide one foot over the edge of the bunk, always with my eyes on that shadow. Now I swear I didn't make the sound of a pin dropping, but I had no more than moved a muscle when that shadowed thing twisted itself around in a flash—and there on the floor before me was the profile of a man's head, upside down, listening—a man's head with a ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... gloomy and unimaginative in its conception of art. Shakespeare, reading the story of Timon, saw in him an image of tragic destiny that would flood the heart of even an ingrate with pity. Great poets have something more difficult and more noble to do than to pin their hearts on their sleeves for daws to peck at. Shakespeare wrought the figure of Timon with as grave justice as he wrought Alcibiades. He wrought both from something feeling within himself, as he ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield

... that there cannot be found in or out of Wall Street a single great financier who would not laugh to scorn the suggestion that "Standard Oil" is engaged in a campaign for the distribution of its Standard Oil stock to the public. Yet pin your great financier down to the facts, and he'll admit that he himself has quite a block of the stock, and that institutions of which he is a director include among their assets in one form or another good-sized parcels of the inestimable security. ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... toward a pin-point of light across the stretch of snow. "Donovan lives over there and Mis' Donovan. We call them 'old folks' now; their hair has turned white as these drifts in two years. All they've got is here. He's a real farmer and a lot ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... lean in its search for treasure amid Alaskan snows, he recked not if reality added an inch or two to his circumference. While he could solve, in fancy, problems that had baffled the acutest investigators, what matter if his tie-pin got mislaid? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 14, 1919 • Various

... poisoning Pope Alexander VI. (Borgia), that he caused a somewhat similar key to be used in opening a cabinet; but the Pope's key was poisoned in the handle, and provided with a small sharp pin, which gave a slight puncture sufficient to allow the poison to pass below the skin. When the Holy Father wished to rid himself of an objectionable friend, he would request him to unlock his cabinet; as the lock turned rather stiffly, a little pressure was necessary on the key-handle, ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt

... obscure. In May, the Viscount De Gand had forced his way to his bedside in the dead of night; and wakening him from his sleep, had assured him, with great solemnity, that his life was not worth a pin's purchase if he remained in Brussels. He was aware, he said, of a conspiracy by which both his liberty and his life were endangered, and assured him that in immediate flight lay his ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... Stratford-upon-Avon, and our pleasant three hours at Oxford. When we were looking at the theatre, Mr. Biddulph told us, that when all the Emperors and Kings came with the Regent, the theatre was filled in every part; but such was the hush you could have heard a pin drop till the Prince put his foot upon the threshold, when the whole assembly rose with a tremendous shout of applause. The Prince was supremely gratified, and said to the Emperor of Russia, "You heard the London mob hoot me, but you see how I am received ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... a mechanical device, with a lever, fitted into a slot at the top, which extends half way around the circumference and is held in place at the bottom by a fixing pin. In this pin there is a small metal ring, for the purpose of extracting the pin when ready ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey

... the reader would try this new task, he may cut out the shields at the back of the book. For spindles he may use three square pieces of cardboard with a pin stuck through the centre of each. After placing the shields on the first spindle the first move will be shield No. 1 to a vacant spindle. Then shield No. 2 to another vacant spindle. Then shield No. 1 on top of shield No. 2, and the ...
— Bright-Wits, Prince of Mogadore • Burren Laughlin and L. L. Flood

... a simple wooden latch, the bar of which turns upon a wooden pin. They are opened from without by lifting the latch from its wooden catch, by means of a string passed through a small hole in the door, and hanging outside. Some few doors are, however, provided with a cumbersome wooden lock, operated by means of a square, notched stick ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff

... well have been sixty as fifty. His clothes soiled, torn and greasy, were of good cut. The shirt was filthy, but it was attached to a frayed collar, and the crumpled cravat was ornamented with a cameo pin. ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace

... getting some little mosaics—specialties of Rome—to-day and I bought, among other things, what I think a very pretty pin and earrings for Jennie. I have also got bracelets for Clara Cramer and Jennie Grant. If I see an opportunity of sending them home before going myself I will send them. I have written to Buck to come over and spend his vacation with us. I can ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant

... old clothes shop in the Temple, with a deep embroidered collar! A rusty black coat!—and everything well brushed, clean after a fashion, and graced by a watch and an imitation gold chain. Contenson allowed a triangle of shirt to show, with pleats in which glittered a sham diamond pin; his black velvet stock set stiff like a gorget, over which lay rolls of flesh as red as that of a Caribbee. His silk hat was as glossy as satin, but the lining would have yielded grease enough for two street lamps if some grocer had bought ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... and impertinences and ambitions; their foolish little life is but a laugh, a sigh, and extinction; and they have no sense. Only the Moral Sense. I will show you what I mean. Here is a red spider, not so big as a pin's head. Can you imagine an elephant being interested in him—caring whether he is happy or isn't, or whether he is wealthy or poor, or whether his sweetheart returns his love or not, or whether his ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... than a band of robbers; nay, the voice of a cricket has struck more terror than the roaring of a lion. There is nothing so inconsiderable which may not appear dreadful to an imagination that is filled with omens and prognostics. A rusty nail or a crooked pin shoot up into prodigies." ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... do when a boy, the sound floating and crying away across the rye-field, the old man came—for, strange to say, that was the one sound he could hear easily, though, as he said to himself, it seemed as small as a pin, coming from ever so far away. He came heavily up from the barn-yard, mopping his red face and forehead, and now and again raising his hand to shade his eyes, concerned to see the unknown visitors, whose horse and buggy were in the stable-yard. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... her, should any serious trouble arise. He even went so far as to suggest that perhaps there was a-foot a ruse to get from her those possessions her father had written of. Katherine rebelled at these insinuations and thought that "dear, good, sweet Janet would never take a pin from her Lambkin to save Church or State. And Lord Cedric, too, even though he would condemn his servant, he would never take her property, he loved her too well for that; beside, he was a gentleman of honour, even though his evil temper did goad him to fearful deeds." She tried to ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... heard as the struggle moved on to another quarter. Nearer, we heard the trailing of heavy artillery down the mountain and against our will the thought formulated itself, "Will that wave of terror roll back to us?" Our ears have developed an abnormal acuteness, so that almost a pin falling will make taut nerves scream, though in reality nobody moves—a glance is enough to both ask and answer a question. A marvelous new self-possession seems to have come to everybody which bridges over a natural despair and forms, at least, a skeleton framework by ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow

... feeling is not confined to the men alone; it is found among the women as well, and is greatly encouraged by a common custom here, agreeably to which, a husband never assigns his wife so much for pin-money, but, according to his means, makes her a present of one or more male or female slaves, whom she can dispose of as she chooses. She generally has them taught how to cook, sew, embroider, or even instructed in some trade, and then lets them out, by the day, week, ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... face with my dead and buried mistress. She was wearing the dress in which I had last seen her alive: carried the same tiny handkerchief in her right hand; and the same card-case in her left. (A woman eight months dead with a card-case!) I had to pin myself down to the multiplication-table, and to set both hands on the stone parapet of the road to assure myself that that at least ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various

... bag for nice buttons, and another for more common ones; a hag containing silk braid, welting cords, and galloon binding. Small rolls of pieces of white and brown linen and cotton are also often needed. A brick pin-cushion is a great convenience in sewing, and better than screw cushions. It is made by covering half a brick with cloth, putting a cushion on the top, and covering it tastefully. It is very useful to hold pins and needles while sewing, and to fasten long ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

... the hundredth time to the hospital; three middle-aged city clerks; a couple of reporters with weak eyes and low collars; an old loose-cheeked woman exhaling patchouli; a bald-headed man with hairy hands, a violent breast-pin, and the indescribable air of a matrimonial agent. Not a word passed. We were all failures in life, and could not trouble to dissemble it, in that heat. Moreover, we were used to each other, as types if not as persons, and had lost curiosity. So we sat listless, dispirited, ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... ladies to get sly peeps at the eminent man. They generally contrived to be on the stairs when he emerged. Boz always appeared, even in the streets, somewhat carefully "made up." The velvet collar, the blue coat, the heavy gold pin, added to ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald

... did occasionally hang rather heavily upon our hands, especially in the evenings. To lessen this weight, we latterly fell upon the contrivance of telling stories, one or two of us each night, by turns. The idea is a borrowed one, as the reader will at once perceive, but we humbly think not a pin the worse on that account. There was no limitation, of course, as to the subject. Each was allowed to tell what story he liked; but it was the general understanding that these stories should be personal, if possible—that is, that each should relate the most remarkable circumstances in ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... was, I have no doubt, one of those hoarse old croakers, that make one timid about going by ponds and marshy ground in the night, up in our State. Well, they had him down in the grass, and one held him while the other ran a pin through both jaws and twisted it there. There was no fun in this. A lot of doctors cutting off an arm couldn't have been more gravely in earnest. Some of the boys were eight and ten years old; but not one of them seemed to feel that they were doing ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens

... be pulled to pieces and made over, and that nothing will be done by standing patiently by, trying to sooth away the creaking and wheezing and groaning of the laboring, lumbering thing, by laying on a little drop of sweet oil with a pin-feather. As it does not see any of these things that are happening before its eyes, of course it is shallowly happy. And on the other hand, he who does see them, and is not amiable, is grimly and Grendally happy. He likes to say disagreeable things, and all this dismay ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... just inside the door. Her mother was beside a long table on which were laid out the necessaries for pastry-making. She had faced round upon the girl and stood brandishing a rolling-pin in one hand, and in the other she held a small basket of eggs. Sarah was seated in a high-backed Windsor chair. Her arms were folded across her waist, and her face expressed perplexed alarm. Prudence's face was aflame; nor were her ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... and, to use the old saying, the dropping of a pin could have been heard. "This gentleman, Sir John Meadows, Bart., is going to buy ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn

... I swear by St. Valentine," cried she, falling back to look at me, and then coming forward to pin up something about my coif, with ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... it was, it was of profit to the King and saving to his purse. The King answered to it with great indifferency, as a thing that it was no great matter whether it was done or no. Sir W. Coventry answered: "I see your Majesty do not remember the old English proverb, 'He that will not stoop for a pin, will never be worth a pound.'" And so they parted, the King bidding him do as he would; which, methought, was an answer not like a King that did intend ever ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... burs to get one blackberry, you get more burs than blackberries. You can not afford to read a bad book, however good you are. You say: "The influence is insignificant." I tell you that the scratch of a pin has sometimes produced the lock-jaw. Alas, if through curiosity, as many do, you pry into an evil book, your curiosity is as dangerous as that of the man who would stick a torch into a gunpowder mill, merely to see whether it would blow up or not. ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... ugly but indestructible 'immortelle'—which is a wreath or cross or some such emblem, made of rosettes of black linen, with sometimes a yellow rosette at the conjunction of the cross's bars—kind of sorrowful breast-pin, so to say. The immortelle requires no attention: you just hang it up, and there you are; just leave it alone, it will take care of your grief for you, and keep it in mind better than you can; stands weather first-rate, and lasts ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Loudoun are four varieties of the white oak, i. e., common, swamp, box, and chestnut-leaved, the latter, however, appearing only along the margin of the Potomac River; black, Spanish, and red oak, chestnut oak, peach or willow oak, pin oak; and in the eastern parts of the county, black jack, or barren oak, and dwarf oak, hickory, black and white walnut, white and yellow poplar, chestnut, locust, ash, sycamore, wild cherry, red flowering maple, gum, sassafras, persimmon, ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head

... class. Although a preference is generally stated for yellow-skinned poultry, the white-skinned birds, if equal in other points, are not underranked in this score. The skin color that is decidedly objectionable is the purplish tinge, which is a sign of diseased stock. Black pin-feathers and dark-colored legs are a source of objection. Especially is this true with young birds which show the pin-feathers. Feathered legs are slightly more objectionable than smooth legs. Small combs and the ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings

... an Australian sailing packet, and contained more first-class horrors than any one of his beloved dime novels. As a finishing touch the narrator turned back the grizzled hair on his forehead and showed a three-inch scar, souvenir of a first mate and a belaying pin. He rolled up his flannel shirtsleeve and displayed a slightly misshapen left arm, broken by a kick from a drunken captain and badly set by ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... because his name was dragged into them; and so he sets himself, in the first part of this letter, with all his might, to shame and to argue the Corinthian Christians out of their wrangling. This great text is one of the considerations which he adduces with that purpose. In effect he says, 'To pin your faith to any one teacher is a wilful narrowing of the sources of your blessing and your wisdom. You say you are Paul's men. Has Apollos got nothing that he could teach you? and may you not get any good out of brave brother Cephas? Take them all; they were ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... shade into the glaring sun and into the view of the girl above. The owner made no move. If the wind wanted to blow his new panama into some lower treetop, compelling him to throw stones, perhaps to its permanent damage, in order to dislodge it, why, that was just one more cause of offense to pin to his indictment of irritation against the great island republic of Caracuna. Such is the temper one gets into after a year in ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... oaths, we know, as well as prayers, Religion lies, and a church-brother May use at will, or one, or t'other; Plausible from his cassock drew A holy manual, seeming new; A book it was of private prayer, But not a pin the worse for wear: 630 For, as we by-the-bye may say, None but small saints in private pray. Religion, fairest maid on earth! As meek as good, who drew her birth From that bless'd union, when in heaven Pleasure was bride to Virtue given; Religion, ever pleased to pray, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... Bellmaus, pour me out some wine. But if the story be not true, if this Coriolanus have lied, by the purple in this glass be it sworn I will be his murderer! The grimmest revenge that ever an injured journalist took shall fall on his head; he shall bleed to death from pin-pricks; every poodle in the street shall look on him scornfully and say: "Fie, Coriolanus, I wouldn't take a bite at you even if you were a sausage." [A knock is heard. BOLZ lays down his knife.] Memento mori! There are our grave-diggers. The last oyster, ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... the war printed in daubs of tawdry colors. His keeper was a hard-faced boy without human pity or consideration, a very devil of obstinacy and fiendish cruelty. To make it worse, the fiend was a person without a collar, in a suit of soiled khaki, with a curious red cross bound by a safety-pin to his left arm. He was intent upon the paper in his hands; he was holding it between his eyes and his prisoner. His vigilance had relaxed, and the moment seemed propitious. With a sudden plunge of arms and legs, the prisoner swept the bed sheet from him, and sprang at the wooden rail ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... Sunday pussy willows. A narrow room, monopolizing one of the windows, opened from the living-room, beyond the oven, and served as pantry and kitchen. A wooden trough, like a chopping-tray, was the washtub. The ironing or mangling apparatus consisted of a rolling-pin, round which the article of clothing was wrapped, and a curved paddle of hard wood, its under-surface carved in pretty geometrical designs, with which it was smoothed. This paddle served also to beat the clothes upon the stones, when the washing was done in the river, ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... the hunter regales himself with a hearty luncheon. Then the entrails are drawn out and passed through the fingers of the left hand to remove the contents, and are afterward braided and returned to the cavity of the stomach, and the slit drawn together and pinned with a little ivory pin (too-bit-tow'-yer) made for the purpose. The dog is allowed to lick the blood from the snow, but gets no more for his share unless an opportunity occurs to help himself when his master's back is turned. The trace is then attached to the ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder

... even with a darning-needle!" laughed Laura Ann. "If anybody asks me to lend her a pin, hear me say, 'Can't, my dear; it's against the rules.' Needn't anybody worry about losing me out o' ...
— Four Girls and a Compact • Annie Hamilton Donnell

... from is like the question where pins go to," said Pheasant. "Think of the thousands and millions of pins that are being used every year, and not one of them worn out. Where do they all go to? One would expect to find a pin mine somewhere." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... legs belonging to a respectable elderly woman who was too deep in her devotion to be aware of the intruder, and, being somewhat astonished by their size, she proceeded to test their quality with a pin, the consequence being an appalling shriek from the woman, which started a shrill treble cry from herself. The service was suspended, and Mr. Hamilton-Wells, the most precise of men, hastened down the aisle, and fished his ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... off with a pin that didn't belong to 'em at our emporium, the fact ain't never been known. I've seen the boss chargin' customers with the cracker they eat when samplin'. We got orders to make light weight if they buy. But about this rumpus; they's a ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren

... qui est appelee Madenie. Printed by A. Neyret at Chambery. 1485. Folio. As far as signature 1 vj, the subject is prose: afterwards commences the poetry—"appelle la somme de la vision Iehan du pin." The colophon is on the reverse of the last leaf but one. A wood-cut is on the last leaf. This small folio volume is printed in a tall, close, and inelegant gothic type; reminding me much of the LIVRE DE CHASSE printed at the same ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... barrel that supported a broad, smooth board-top. "This is where I compose my favorite works." He turned round, and cut out of a mighty mass of dough in a tin trough a portion, which he threw down on his table and attacked with a rolling-pin. "That means pie, Mr. Hubbard," he explained, "and pie means meat-pie,—or squash-pie, at a pinch. Today's pie-baking day. But you needn't be troubled on that account. So's to-morrow, and so was yesterday. Pie twenty-one times a week is the word, and don't you forget it. They say old Agassiz," ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... and moved the tell-tale handle of an index which recorded that they had touched it at such an hour—it was a solemn consideration what enormous hosts of dead belong to one old great city, and how, if they were raised while the living slept, there would not be the space of a pin's point in all the streets and ways for the living to come out into. Not only that, but the vast armies of dead would overflow the hills and valleys beyond the city, and would stretch away all round it, God knows ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... the wood-pile, paused for a moment to gaze with callow interest at them; but the spectacle of "The'dosia's sweetheart" was too familiar to be of more than fleeting diversion, and they resorted once more to their pastime. Mrs. Blakely too, who with rolling-pin in her hand had turned to gaze out of the window, went back to rolling out the dough vigorously, with only the muttered comment, "Wish The'dosia didn't know how much I'd like that man fur a son-in-law, then she'd be willin' ter like ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... several magical secrets handed down to them by tradition, for this purpose, as, on St. Agnes' night, 21st day of Jannary, take a row of pins, and pull out every one, one after another, saying a Pater Noster, or (Our Father) sticking a pin in your sleeve, and you will dream of him, or her, you shall marry. Ben Jonson in one of his Masques make some ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey

... for years to surprise. They are Indians, a handful of Mohawks and Iroquois, whom some ill wind has blown down from their Canadian reservation, and left in these West Side tenements to eke out such a living as they can, weaving mats and baskets, and threading glass pearls on slippers and pin-cushions, until, one after another, they have died off and gone to happier hunting-grounds than Thompson Street. There were as many families as one could count on the fingers of both hands when I first came upon them, at the death of ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... sustained no damage of any consequence, and the wheel, as far as I was able to judge, was sound, being only slightly injured in the box. The only thing requisite to set the chaise in a travelling condition appeared to be a linch-pin, which I determined to make. Going to the companion wheel, I took out the linch-pin, which I carried down with me to the dingle, to serve as ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... Ray had been seized with a fit while making a fire, and she was taken up apparently insensible, and conveyed to her bed. She complained to me, who visited her in the course of the day, that she was likely to starve, as food was denied her; and I was persuaded to pin a stocking under my dress, and secretly put food into it from the table. This I afterward carried to her ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk

... Why, how silly!" she exclaimed, and her energetic voice seemed suddenly to dominate the situation. "It wasn't so many years ago, I'm sure, that you used to tumble for the pleasure of it. Here, let me pin on your crown, and then run straight upstairs to the red room and get mammy to mend your flounce. It won't take her a minute. There, now, you're all the prettier for a ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow

... around her neck, for I dreaded lest she should get some deadly chill from the night air, unclad as she was. I feared to wake her all at once, so, in order to have my hands free to help her, I fastened the shawl at her throat with a big safety pin. But I must have been clumsy in my anxiety and pinched or pricked her with it, for by-and-by, when her breathing became quieter, she put her hand to her throat again and moaned. When I had her carefully wrapped up I put my shoes on her feet, and then ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... you that in fewer words. I give my daughter as dowry, forty thousand thalers, and a yearly pin-money of two thousand thalers. I will bear the expense of the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... and selecting a feathered arrow out of her hand, said:—"Now for a wager. If I hit the female, shall the lady whom I most admire in this company be mine?" The damsel assented. Jemshid drew the string, and the arrow struck the female dove so skilfully as to transfix both the wings, and pin them together. The male ring-dove flew away, but moved by natural affection it soon returned, and settled on the same spot as before. The bow was said to be so strong that there was not a warrior in the whole kingdom who could even draw the string; and when the damsel ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... he had deliberately played this trick. He was now trying to avoid giving me any opening to tell him that it was Amulya I wanted, not him. But his stratagem was futile, for I could see his weakness through it. I must not yield up a pin's point of the ground I ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... wish.' Now the Persian bore the prince malice for that he willed not he should have his sister; so he showed him the peg of ascent on the right side [of the horse's neck] and saying to him, 'Turn this pin,' left him. So the prince turned the pin and forthwith the horse soared with him into the air, as it were a bird, and gave not over flying with him, till it disappeared from sight, whereat the King was troubled and perplexed about ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous

... Norton, dived also, and it was he who, after a moment, righted himself with something shining in his hand which he proceeded grimly to display to the whole assembled company. It was a small, folding mirror—little more than a toy, it looked—with a pin attached ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... wharf. If he has good luck and makes money, either in the public service or otherwise, he displays it not in any richness in his toilet or in greater care of his person, but in the splendor of his jewels. One of his first purchases is a diamond-pin, which he sticks in his shirt-front, but he never sees any connection of an aesthetic kind between the linen and the pin, and will wear the latter in a very dirty shirt-front as cheerfully as in a clean one—in fact, more cheerfully, as he has a vague feeling that by showing it he atones ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... wooden mill-wheel. And the music carried with it the wording of old undying rhymes, and sang of the jolly, uncaring, uncared-for miller, of the farmer who went riding upon his grey mare, of the mouse who lived beneath the merry mill-pin, of the sweet music on yonder green hill and the dancers all in yellow—the songs and fancies of a lingering olden time, when men took life as children take a long summer day, and went to bed at last with a simple trust in something ...
— When William Came • Saki

... up the brook, was in Dickens's mind when he described Mr. Crisparkle's pilgrimages to Cloisterham Weir in the cold rimy mornings, and his discovery, first of Edwin Drood's watch in a corner of the weir, and then, after diving again and again, of his shirt-pin "sticking in some mud and ooze" at the bottom. The nearest weir on the Medway is at Allington, seven or eight miles above Rochester, and Cloisterham Weir was but ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin

... Harangued, gave lectures, made each simple elf Almost as good a speaker as himself; Whilst the whole town, mad with mistaken zeal, An awkward rage for elocution feel; Dull cits and grave divines his praise proclaim, And join with Sheridan's[49] their Macklin's name. Shuter, who never cared a single pin Whether he left out nonsense, or put in, 650 Who aim'd at wit, though, levell'd in the dark, The random arrow seldom hit the mark, At Islington[50], all by the placid stream Where city swains in lap of Dulness dream, Where quiet as her strains their strains do flow, That all the patron ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... bachelor once more flung it off, and, raising his rifle in energetic invocation, cried: "Now the high-constable catch and confound all knaves in towns and rats in grain-bins, and if in this boat, which is a human grain-bin for the time, any sly, smooth, philandering rat be dodging now, pin him, thou high ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... tumbled up and down in her own mind;" she longed to consent, but Cotton's eye was upon her, and Cotton's departure would be an irreparable loss, so she decided to end the matter in the most summary manner. Plunging a particularly large pin into her cushioned breast, as if it was a relief to inflict that mock torture upon herself, she ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... you. If you are conscious that you have any gift, even in small degree, never let the world laugh it away. See 'that no man take thy crown,' the Scripture says. Every one who has contributed anything to the progress of the world has been laughed at. Stick a pin in thee, Ben. ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth

... rolling-pin and a mutton pasty." A loud laugh here announced the hit, of which this sally was the bearer, it being levelled directly at the well-known propensities of the personage to ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... "A sign of the highest civilization, then. But please to think of Juliet after ten years of Romeo and his pin-headed intelligence and his preordained infidelities. Do you imagine that her predecessor, Rosamond, would have had no successors? Juliet would have been compelled to divorce Romeo, if only for ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister

... the other hand," she said, "there we are—together for three-four days. I don't want to spend them fighting off attempts to clobber me every thirty seconds. So any time you try and miss, Comteen, mama is going to pin you down fast, and hot up your ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz

... I took out my scarf-pin. Her face flushed with pleasure, as it would have flushed for no sum of money. She might have waived away a present for herself, but she could not resist one for the novio, and I was thanked far beyond the ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... pure contralto sings in the organ loft, The carpenter dresses his plank—the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp, The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner, The pilot seizes the king-pin—he heaves down with a strong arm, The mate stands braced in the whale-boat—lance and harpoon are ready, The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches, The deacons are ordained with crossed hands at the altar, The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel, ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs

... you, do,' she said; 'I'm behindhand as it is. You won't get no dinner if you come a-hindering of me like this. Come, off you goes, or I'll pin a dishcloth to some of ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit

... boards, and the whole made secure and water-tight. In the middle of the inner enclosure a stout post is planted, to stand a few inches above the wall, and the surrounding space is filled up with clay rammed tight. A strong iron pin is inserted in the centre of the post, on which is fitted a revolving beam, which hangs across the whole circumference of the machine and protrudes a couple of feet or so on each side. To this beam are attached, with short chains, a couple of drags made like V-shaped ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson

... as I live, I will not buy a pin out of your walls for this; Nay, you shall cozen me, and I'le thank you; and send you Brawn and Bacon, and soil you every long vacation a brace of foremen, that at Michaelmas shall ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... astrolabe for measuring the latitude, by observation of the sun, at sea. It consisted of a graduated metal circle, suspended by a ring which was passed over the thumb, and hung vertically. A pointer was fixed to a pin at the centre. This arm, called the alhidada, worked round the graduated circle, and was pointed to the sun. The altitude of the sun was thus determined, and, by help of solar tables, the latitude could be found from observations ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes

... lengths. The arm projecting from the center of the bar, D, supports an arbor having at one end a socket for receiving the twisted iron bar, E, and at the other end a center and a short finger or pin. A metal disk having three spurs, a central aperture, and a series of holes equally distant from the center and from each other, is attached by its spurs to the end of the cylinder to be fluted, and the center ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various

... the form in which it affects the roots of corn, is a slender white grub, not thicker than a pin, from one fourth to three-eighths of an inch in length, with a small brown head, and six very short legs. It commences its attack in May or June, usually at some distance from the stalk, towards which it eats its way beneath the epidermis, ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... with them and cannot take a hostile position opposite to the new state of things in France; we leave them alone, but if a Government which has the approbation of the country be formed, we shall feel it necessary to recognise it, in order to pin them down to maintain peace and the existing Treaties, which is of great importance. It will not be pleasant for us to do this, but the public good and the peace of Europe go before one's feelings. God knows what one feels towards the French. I trust, dear Uncle, that you will maintain ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... at one another or to say a word. The Queen was sitting in an armchair at the head of the bed, her arm underneath the King's head, and her head on the same pillow on which he lay; with her other hand she continually wiped the perspiration from his forehead. You might have heard a pin drop; no sound was heard but the crackling of the fire and the death-rattle, that dreadful sound which goes to one's heart, and which tells plainly that life is ebbing. This rattling in the throat lasted about an hour longer, and then the King lay motionless. The doctors bent their ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... alone and at night, not knowing where you are going or where you ought to go. Zimmermann himself never imagined a solitude more complete, albeit such a situation is not so favorable to philosophic meditation as the rapt Zimmermann might suppose. I employ my thoughts as well as I am able, and pin my faith to the sagacity of Spitfire. Presently a light gleams in front of me. It is only a flickering, uncertain ray; perhaps some belated teamster is urging his reluctant mules to camp and has lighted his lantern. No,—there are sparks; it is a camp-fire. I hearken for the challenge, not without ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... and giant crackers of the morning were followed by pyrotechnics that aroused unbounded admiration from the grown-ups and caused an excitement among the small greasers that threatened to end in a human conflagration. A small fortune went up in gigantic pin-wheels; flower-pots that sent up amazing blossoms in all the hues of the rainbow; rockets that burst in mid-air and let fall a shower of coiling snakes, which, in their turn, exploded into a myriad stars; Roman candles that sometimes went off at the ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs

... Highness; as ignorant as I am of the party who desired me to present you with the other packet which I delivered. Here is also a paper I was desired to pin upon a man's clothes after ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... to the extreme left hand corner of the room, where several articles are piled. He drags out a kit bag, then some necessary wearing apparel, underclothes, socks, a sweater, etc., then a large and rather luxurious lunch kit, a pin cushion. with his monogram, a small travelling pillow with his monogram, a linen toilet case embroidered in blue, to hang on the wall—these last evidently presents from admiring lady friends. Finally he brings forth a large rubber life preserving suit. He makes a show of putting all ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... sometimes conferred at baptisms. Imagine two sisters named Nettle and Envy. Off-hand, you will say that these names sound ugly, whilst Rose and Faith sound pretty. Yet, believe me, there is not, in point of actual sound, one pin to choose either between Badger and Lavender, or between Rose and Nettle, or between Faith and Envy. There is no such thing as a singly euphonious or a singly cacophonous name. There is no word which, by itself, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm

... work, and the affair turned out exactly as I had foreseen. At Elm Street a couple of fellows jostled against me, and when the mix-up was over the parcel containing my two sample records was gone. That was all that had been wanted; my watch, pin, and money had ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen

... a robe of zour cliding, That hings upon the pin; And I'll gae to the gude grene wode, And speik wi' zour lemman. O bide at hame, now Lord Barnard, I warde ze bide at hame; Neir wyte a man for violence, That ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols

... and I saw his delicate fingers forsake the cigarette they were rolling to make the sacred sign upon his breast. He was always smoking one cigarette and making another; as he lit the new one the glow fell upon a strange pin that he wore, a pin with a tiny crucifix inlaid in mosaic. So the religious cast of Senhor Santos was brought twice home to me in the same moment, though, to be sure, I had often been struck by it before. And it depressed me ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung

... pin had been taken. It was done while I was in your room, Mrs. Pond. The circumstances were exactly the same as those attending the ...
— The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories • Nicholas Carter

... nut, he cuts loose with a bunch of rapid-fire jabs that had me wonderin' where I'd be if one landed just right. I ain't got it mapped out yet just how it happened; for about then the ladies let go a lot of squeals; but I remembers stoppin' a facer that showed me pin-wheels, an' ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... the clerks and painted their clothes red. Those who had no moustaches he presented with green moustaches and added brown beards to the beardless. When there was nothing left to paint he cut the little men out of the card-board, pricked their eyes with a pin, and began playing soldiers with them. After cutting out the titular councillor Kraterov, he fixed him on a match-box and carried him in that ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... she took out her bonnet. On the mantle lay the other glove she had forgotten in her flight. The two lower drawers of the bureau were half open (she had forgotten to shut them); and on its marble top lay her shawl-pin and a soiled cuff. What other recollections came upon her I know not; but she suddenly grew quite white, shivered, and listened with a beating heart, and her hand upon the door. Then she stepped ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... call this shooting, Mingos!" he exclaimed, "but we've squaws among the Delawares, and I have known Dutch gals on the Mohawk, that could outdo your greatest indivours. Ondo these arms of mine, put a rifle into my hands, and I'll pin the thinnest warlock in your party to any tree you can show me, and this at a hundred yards—ay, or at two hundred if the objects can be seen, nineteen shots in twenty; or, for that matter twenty in twenty, if the ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... frock-coat, black pants, embroidered vest, and an enormous shirt-collar that endangered his ears. This was secured around the neck with a fancy neckcloth, very tastefully set off with a diamond pin, He was very slender, with a narrow, feminine face, round popeyes—requiring the application of a pocket-glass every few minutes—and very fair complexion, with little positive expression of character in ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... the crowd. The other is General Scholl, a dear, kind old gentleman, who is dressed in the costume of Frederick the Great's time, with a white wig, the pigtail of which is tied with black ribbon, a huge jabot of lace with a diamond pin on his breast. ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone

... Hartman, Lynch and Burke to compel Senate concurrence in the Assembly amendments, while Senators Boynton, Black, Miller, Campbell, Holohan, Stetson and the other anti-machine Senators whom the Call had formerly backed in their efforts against the machine, had become "pin-head politicians," in the columns of the Call, intent upon defeat of ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn

... the whole crowd against you and frightened your friends. If ever he tells the Clan-na-Gael about young Everard, your life won't be worth a pin." ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... had finished tea, they tied up the clothes in bundles; and Lucie's pocket-handkerchiefs were folded up inside her clean pinny, and fastened with a silver safety-pin. ...
— The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle • Beatrix Potter

... Collar of SS. which are of real interest to a {363} numerous section of the titled aristocracy in the United Kingdom; and it is with these, as bearing upon the heraldic and gentilitial rights of the subject, that I am desirous to grapple. MR. NICHOLS, and those who pin faith upon his dicta, hold that the Collar of SS. was a livery ensign bestowed by our kings upon certain of their retainers, in much the same sense and fashion as Cedric the Saxon is said to have given ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850 • Various

... ratchet and pawl mechanism. Movement is given to each feed by the connecting links shown, to each of which motion is in turn imparted by the bell crank lever placed beside the eccentric. This lever is actuated by a crank pin on the main shaft, working into a block sliding in a slot in the shorter or horizontal arm of the lever, while a similar but adjustable block, sliding in the vertical arm, serves to impart the motion of the lever to the system of connecting links, the adjustable block allowing of a longer or shorter ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various

... was slight, and hung on wires,—so said her neighbors. They also remarked that her nose was as picked as a pin, and that anybody with them freckles and that red hair was sure to be smart. You could always tell. Mrs. Robbins knew her reputation for extreme acuteness, and tried to ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown

... holding a number of wooden pins set at right angles to the bars, and held together by crosspieces. Let forty full spools be placed in the skarne, one above the other. The free ends of threads from the spools are gathered in the hand, and fastened to a pin at the top of the warping-bars. The group of threads then are carried from side to side of the bars, passing around a pin on one bar, then around a pin on the opposite bar, to the extreme end; then back again in the same way, the spools revolving on wires and freely playing ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... he jumped up the stair, And tirled at the pin; Oh, wha sae ready as hersel' To let ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... their affections or their manners. They still lived as marauding chiefs, surrounded by wild kerns and gallowglasses fighting each other and preying on their own poor subjects. "Let a thousand of my people die," remarked one of them, Neil Garv, "I pass not a pin. . . . I will punish, exact, cut and hang where and whenever I list." Had they been able to make common cause they might perhaps have shaken the English grasp from their necks, for it was commonly corrupt and feeble. ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... Duke a note to say the publication of my private letter to Sir J. Malcolm did not signify one pin's head, and it will ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)

... served to relieve his pent-up nervousness. He did believe the principle upon which with so much quickness he had hit as his best defence, and could with all his force sustain it. He looked about the room in silence a moment, but nobody was quick enough to pin him down to facts and insist upon his denying or allowing the charge brought against him. The indisputable correctness of his position that a servant's testimony could not be taken against a member in a club of gentlemen confounded ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates

... chansons," and had joyous-heartedly mounted my six flights of stairs. I lived modestly, it is true; but never for a moment was I doubtful as to my next meal, and I have always enjoyed the creature comforts of the respectable classes; never did Lisette pin her shawl curtain-wise across my window. Sometimes, nowadays, I almost wish she had. I never dreamed of glory, love, pleasure, madness, or spent my lifetime in a moment, like the singer of the immortal song. Often the weary moments ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... wept and howled. De Aquila ran the beads through his fingers. The last one—I have said they were large nuts—opened in two halves on a pin, and there was a small folded parchment within. On it was written: "The Old Dog goes to Salisbury to be beaten. I have his ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling

... roses every day Will whip you hence, And bind you, when you long to play, For your offence. I'll shut mine eyes to keep you in; I'll make you fast it for your sin; I'll count your power not worth a pin. —Alas! what hereby shall I win ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... know?" I asked in a fury. "Yes!" she cried. "Because he is not good enough," I said brutally. During the moment's pause I noticed the fire on the other shore blaze up, dilating the circle of its glow like an amazed stare, and contract suddenly to a red pin-point. I only knew how close to me she had been when I felt the clutch of her fingers on my forearm. Without raising her voice, she threw into it an infinity of scathing contempt, ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... perceived, a silk-clad shoulder. Mother had on her best dress; nay, she wore her coral pin and ear-rings. Her lace collar was scented with Jockey Club, and her neck, into which I was burrowing, had the indescribable something that was not quite odour, not all softness, but was compounded of ...
— Painted Windows • Elia W. Peattie

... names, dates, personal description, size of reward and place where last seen. This time it's a general alarm. From what I could gather, a downcasted Issy Wisenheimer has been up to the front parlor beefing about his vanishing bankroll and his disappearing breast-pin. You wouldn't think a self-respecting citizen of a great Republic like this'n would carry on so over thirty-eight dollars in currency and a diamond so yeller it woulda been a topaz if it had been any yellower. But such was indeed the case. I gleans ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... for a moment on board after the bustle of wearing the ship round had ceased, so that you might have heard a pin drop, as the saying is, although in the distance away astern the melancholy cadence of the waves breaking on Saint Paul's Islets was borne down to us on the wind. As I stood in the waist, whither so far aft I had followed Jorrocks, I could have caught any words spoken on the poop above me, ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson

... is, as I conceive, done by image or model, made in the likeness of that man or beast they intend to work mischief upon, and by the subtlety of the devil made at such hours and times when it shall work most powerfully upon them, by thorn, pin, or needle, pricked into that limb or ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts

... work to-day," said the giant. "I will spare you your head if you will clean out my stables. They contain five hundred horses and they have not been cleaned for seven hundred years. I am anxious to find my great-grandmother's slumber-pin which was lost somewhere in these stables. The poor old soul never slept a wink after losing it, so she died for want of sleep. I want the slumber-pin for my own use, as I am a very ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher

... equipment. Fingers were the best tools for working the gum. The prison officials allowed him a bench and a marble slab, a friend procured him a few dollars' worth of gum, which sold then at five cents a pound, and his wife contributed her rolling pin. ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson

... assured of support from Marlborough and his friends, would choose to avow himself Protestant; but he made so many conditions over it, he was so vague and wary that 'twas hard to tell what he would be at. When my Lord Middleton tried to pin him to something plain and certain he would ever evade, till it began to grow late and the Prince talked of supper and bed. This Colonel Boyce took up very heartily, and was indeed giving his orders when there came a noise in the courtyard ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey

... Houri Paradises, richer Lands of Cockaigne? Brother, this is not he; this is a counterfeit, this twangling, jangling, vain, acrid, scrannel-piping man. Thou dost well to say with sick Saul, "It is nought, such harping!"—and in sudden rage, to grasp thy spear, and try if thou canst pin such a one to the wall. King Saul was mistaken in his man, but thou art right in thine. It is the due of such a one: nail him to the wall, and leave him there. So ought copper shillings to be nailed on counters; copper geniuses on walls, and left ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle

... eyes and your exquisite millinery. The last, if they prudently accept you, do so on algebraical principles; you are but the X or the Y that represents a certain aggregate of goods matrimonial,—pedigree, title, rent-roll, diamonds, pin-money, opera-box. They cast you up with the help of mamma, and you wake some morning to find that plus ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... with life those days. The May weather was lovely, softly blue with cool airs and little white clouds like swollen pin- cushions drifting lazily from point to point. The gardens were dazzling with their flowers, the Cathedral Green shone like glass, and every door- knob and brass knocker in the ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... you mean, dirty, ripscallious looking varmint of the woods you, that don't know a pin from a powder horn!" rejoined the undaunted Mrs. Younker, in a vehement tone: "You'd kill me for using the freedom of tongue, as these blessed Colonies is this moment fighting for with the tarnal Britishers? ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett

... communications were open to our side and closed to that of the enemy. The enemy enjoyed such initiative as there was. Bodies of hostile troops used to cross the border from time to time and inflict unpleasant pin-pricks upon us. The situation was an eminently unsatisfactory one, but what was ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... without an arm, according to the dilapidations which had taken place in my own frame; but strange to say, their sensitive bodies, which felt every change of weather, shrunk from a rough touch, and bled at the scratch of a pin, had outlasted mine, though insensible to pain or sickness. There stood the father, scarcely altered; his hair perhaps a little more gray, but his eyes as quick and bright as ever. And there was the mother, still grave and gentle, but looking ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown

... brother—Richard, I think you said?—is a farmer, he was born a farmer, he has the air of a farmer, and a well-doing farmer to boot. But we are not all born with a love for mother earth, and you, meseems, have dreamed of a larger life than lies within the pin folds of a farm. To tell the truth, my lad, I have ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... savage animal. They attacked the boar with spears, or surrounded him and drove him into nets. He was a ferocious antagonist to both dogs and men, and when sore pressed would wheel about, prepared to fight to the death. Before the dogs could grip him by the ear, his one weak point, and pin him down, his sharp teeth would often wound or even kill both the hunter and his dogs. The pluckier the animal the louder the praise sung in his honor when his head was brought into the hall. The great head, properly soused, was borne in on an immense salver by the "old blue-coated ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann

... were occupied by pot-lids of various sizes, old and battered, but shining like little suns; small looking-glasses, also of various sizes, some square and others round; little strings of beads; heads of meerschaums that had been much used in former days; pin-cushions, shell-baskets, one or two horse-shoes, and iron-heels of boots; several flat irons belonging to doll's houses, with a couple of dolls, much the worse for wear, mounting guard over them; besides a ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... women, the children, the chickens, the forage, the mules-persons or property—whom they encounter? The circumstances and the exigencies of the situation determine their conduct. A household mastiff who will pin a rebel by the throat when he passes his kennel, flying from pursuit, is just as serviceable as would prove a loyal bullet sped to the rebel's brain. I believe that the acknowledged fact, the necessary fact, that wherever our army advances, emancipation practically ensues, ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... girl's side and took the rolling-pin from her hands. "And don't hurry back. Set awhile. Now get your ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin

... could not be found, and was very complicated and intricate, Alexander, despairing of untying it, drew his sword and cut through the knot, thus making many ends appear. But Aristobulus tells us that he easily undid it by pulling out of the pole the pin to which the strap was fastened, and then drawing off the ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... with a large dish of dough, a board called a kneading-board, a rolling-pin, and a large sheet of dough which had been rolled into its present form by the rolling-pin, which utensil was ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth

... they hollo'd, an' the next thing they did find Was a bull-calf in a pin-fold, an' that, too, they left behind. ...
— The Three Jovial Huntsmen • Randolph Caldecott

... blinded with tears as she kissed her dear ones goodbye, and Mattie Hastings with Patty Sands came way to Akron to see her off, Mattie bringing the loveliest pin-cushion made for her by ...
— How Ethel Hollister Became a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson

... against it, Strong stripped off his jacket and wrapped it about the line to prevent rope burns. Then, hooking the emergency light on his belt, he stepped off into the shaft. Tom watched his skipper lower himself until nothing but the light, a wavering pin point in the dark hole, could be seen. At last the light stopped moving and Tom knew Strong had ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell

... shifting a bit?" he said very politely. "I want to pin my paper on the door again. It seems to have ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse

... day from there Bill traveled till dusk. When camp was made and the fire started, he called Hazel to one side, up on a little rocky knoll, and pointed out a half dozen pin points of yellow glimmering ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... Alps, to every woman, (Although, God knows, it is a grievous sin,) 'Tis, I may say, permitted to have two men; I can't tell who first brought the custom in, But "Cavalier Serventes" are quite common, And no one notices or cares a pin; An we may call this (not to say the worst) A second marriage which ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... for one day the flaming sword of retribution. Arabs had desecrated our graves as they always did, and had stripped our dead. The Cherub put the bodies back and dug several dummy graves. In these last he put Mills bombs; removing the pin, he held each bomb down as the earth was delicately piled over. The deed called for great nerve; he could feel the bomb quick to jump under his finger's pressure. Arabs watched impudently, sniping his party from a few hundred yards away. Neither did they let him ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson

... the Pin, "you are just the one Through which I'm commissioned, at once, to run From back to breast, till, your fluttering done, Your form may be fairly shown. And when my point shall have reached your heart, 'T will be as a balm to the wounded part, To think how you're ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould



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