pinion

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɪnjən/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪnjən
• Hyphenation: pin‧ion
• Homophone: piñon

• pinnion (obsolete)

From Old French pignon, from Latin penna (“feather”).

pinion (plural pinions)

1. A wing.
   • c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 63, column 1:

     Therefore do nimble Pinion'd Doues draw Loue,
     And therefore hath the wind-ſwift Cupid wings:

   • 1712 May, [Alexander Pope], “The Rape of the Locke. An Heroi-comical Poem.”, in Miscellaneous Poems and Translations. , London: Bernard Lintott , →OCLC, canto I, page 153:

     See o'er the Alps his tow'ring Pinions ſoar,
     Where never Engliſh Poet reach'd before.

   • 1826, N. P. Willis, Poem delivered at the Departure of the Senior Class of Yale College:

     Press on! for it is godlike to unloose The spirit, and forget yourself in thought; Bending a pinion for the deeper sky, And, in the very fetters of your flesh, Mating with the pure essences of heaven!

   • 1839 September, Edgar A[llan] Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, in William E[vans] Burton and Edgar A. Poe, editors, Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine, and American Monthly Review, volume V, number III, Philadelphia, Pa.: William E. Burton, , →OCLC, page 148:

     Never seraph spread a pinion / Over fabric half so fair.

2. (ornithology) The joint of a bird's wing farthest from the body.
3. (ornithology) Any of the outermost primary feathers on a bird's wing.
   • c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 356, column 2:

     An argument that he is pluckt, when hither / He ſends ſo poore a Pinnion of his Wing,

4. A moth of the genus Lithophane.

pinion (third-person singular simple present pinions, present participle pinioning, simple past and past participle pinioned) (transitive)

1. To cut off the pinion of a bird’s wing, or otherwise disable or bind its wings, in order to prevent it from flying.
   • 1577, Konrad Heresbach, translated by Barnabe Googe, Foure Bookes of Husbandrie, book iv (1586), page 169:

     They that meane to fatte Pigions…some…do softly tie their Legges:…some vse onely to pinion them.

   • 1641–2, Henry Best (author), Donald Woodward (editor), The Farming and Memorandum Books of Henry Best of Elmswell, 1642: With a Glossary and Linguistic Commentary by Peter McClure, Oxford University Press/British Academy (1984), →ISBN (10), →ISBN (13), page 115:

     When they are aboute fortnights olde (for they must bee driven noe longer) yow must watch where the henne useth to sitte on nights, and come when it beginneth to bee darke and throwe somethinge over the henne as shee broodeth them, then take and clippe every of theire right wings. Then when they are aboute moneths old, yow must come after the same manner and pinnion or cutte a joynte of every of theire right winges.

   • ibidem, page 129:

     The Swanners gette up the younge swannes about midsummer and footemarke them for the owners, and then doe they allsoe pinnion them, cuttinge a joynte of theire right winges, and then att Michaellmasse doe they bringe them hoame, or else bringe hoame some, and leave the rest att some of the mills and wee sende for them.

   • 1665–1667, Abraham Cowley, The Works of M^r Abraham Cowley (fifth edition, 1678), “Several Diſcourſes by way of Eſſays, in Verſe and Proſe”, essay 9: ‘The ſhortneſs of Life and uncertainty of Riches’, closing verses, verse 3 (page 138):

     Suppoſe, thou Fortune could to tameneſs bring, / And clip or pinion her wing; / Suppoſe thou could’ſt on Fate ſo far prevail / As not to cut off thy Entail.

   • 1727, Peter Longueville, Philip Quarll, published 1816, page 67:

     The two old ducks…being pinioned, could not fly away.

   • 1849, Daniel Jay Browne, The American Poultry Yard, published 1855, page 242:

     They…should have been pinioned at the first joint of the wing.

2. To bind the arms of someone, so as to deprive him of their use; to disable by so binding.

   Synonym: shackle

   • 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Fate of the Artemis”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:

     “ […] Captain Markam had been found lying half-insensible, gagged and bound, on the floor of the sitting-room, his hands and feet tightly pinioned, and a woollen comforter wound closely round his mouth and neck ; whilst Mrs. Markham's jewel-case, containing valuable jewellery and the secret plans of Port Arthur, had disappeared. […] ”

   • 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 168:

     Pinioning its extremities with the edge of the towel, she crushed off its offensive and defensive weapons with a splinter from the wall. The blowfly was her next victim, but an unexciting one.

   • 1916, James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Macmillan Press Ltd, paperback, page 80:

     Nash pinioned his arms behind while Boland seized a long cabbage stump which was lying in the gutter.

   • 1996, David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest , Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 12:

     Both my arms are pinioned from behind by the Director of Comp., who wrestles me roughly down, on me with all his weight. I taste floor.

3. (transferred sense, figurative) To restrain; to limit.
   • c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     Know, sir that I / Will not wait pinion'd at your master's court, / Nor once be chastis'd with the sober eye / Of dull Octavia.

   • 1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter IX, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:

     I was suddenly seized from behind and thrown to earth. As I fell, a warm body fell on top of me, and hands grasped my arms and legs. When I could look up, I saw a number of giant fingers pinioning me down, while others stood about surveying me.

   • 1999: Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane, Sleepy Hollow, scene 14

     I am pinioned by a chain of reasoning! Why else do his four friends conspire to conceal

• pinioned
• pinioner
• pinioning
• nameless pinion (Lithophane innominata)
• pale pinion (Lithophane socia)
• Lemmer's pinion (Lithophane lemmeri)
• tawny pinion (Lithophane semibrunnea)

Borrowed from French pignon.

pinion (plural pinions)

1. (mechanical engineering) The smallest gear in a gear train.
   • 1844, Edgar Allan Poe, The Premature Burial

     A certain period elapses, and some unseen mysterious principle again sets in motion the magic pinions and the wizard wheels.

   • 1898, Alexander Schwalbach, Julius Wilcox, “The Chainless Wheel”, in The Modern bicycle and its accessories; a complete reference book for rider, dealer, and maker, New York: The Commercial advertiser association, page 10:

     The usual front sprocket has teeth, which which mesh into a pinion on a shaft that carries power to the wheel through a pair of pinions at the rear.

   • 2003, Spiral Bevel Pinion Crack Detection in a Helicopter Gearbox, page 5:

     The spiral bevel pinion has 19 teeth, a diametral pitch of 6.940 teeth/inch, a face width of 1.28 inch, a bevel angle of 15 degrees 16 minutes, and a spiral angle of 30 degrees left hand, clockwise.

• pinion on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• pinioning on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• flight feather on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• “Pinion, v.” listed on page 883/2–3 of volume VII (O–P, ed. James Augustus Henry Murray, 1908) of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (1st ed.)

Borrowed from English billion.

pinion

1. billion

Borrowed from French pignon.

pinion n (plural pinioane)

1. gearwheel