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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


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"Pinion" Quotes from Famous Books



... canoe am ober yender, somewhar near dat flatboat," mused Jethro, several minutes after the departure of the scout; "I has a little ob dat 'pinion myself. It wouldn't take more dan five minutes to run across to de oder side. Dat's what he oughter do, but instead ob dat he goes clear round de clearing frough de woods—de most obfoolishest ting dat he could do. He runs de risk ob steppin' on a rattlesnake ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... transform its owner into some tiny creature that could hide and spy in the smallest cranny. Alberic promptly transforms himself into a toad. In an instant Wotan's foot is on him; Loki tears away the helmet; they pinion him, and drag him away a prisoner up through the earth to the ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... there's the 'pinion a man has of himsen, and there's the 'pinion other folks have on him. There'd be two 'pinions about a cracked bell if the bell ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... machine for lifting heavy objects, acting by the power either of the lever, the tooth and pinion, ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... birds cleverly at the first rise; and although mine got off at first without a shot, by dodging round a birch tree straight in Tim's face, and flew back slap toward the thicket, yet he pitched in its outer skirt, and as he jumped up wild I cut him down with a broken pinion and a shot through his bill at fifty yards, and Chase ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)


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