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Pinning   /pˈɪnɪŋ/   Listen
Pinning

noun
1.
A mutual promise of a couple not to date anyone else; on college campuses it was once signaled by the giving of a fraternity pin.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Pinning" Quotes from Famous Books



... the newly arisen class of intellectuals sympathized with the Polish cause. In that part of the country the systematic Jew-baiting of the Polish pans, or noble landowners, was still fresh in the minds, and the Jews, moreover, were pinning all their faith to the emancipation to be bestowed by St. Petersburg. The will o' the wisp of Russification had already begun to lure the Jewish professional class. In many Lithuanian localities the Jews who failed to show their sympathy with the Polish ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... apron out of a towel, and Anne was pinning a sheet into a kimono, so she could take off her dinner gown and still be proper, Dallas harked back ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... not in a remarkable state of preservation, or Captain Whetmore would not have taken them from his vessel; but Reddy explained that the holes could be closed up by pasting paper over them, or by each boy borrowing a sheet from his mother and pinning ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis

... something bogus, a listener might raise his hand and say "My bogometer just triggered". More extremely, "You just pinned my bogometer" means you just said or did something so outrageously bogus that it is off the scale, pinning the bogometer needle at the highest possible reading (one might also say "You just redlined my bogometer"). The agreed-upon unit of bogosity is the {microLenat}. 2. The potential field generated by a {bogon ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... Patriarch, however, might be expected to be punctual, and she had done nothing towards dressing but putting on those gilt sandals. This brought her to swift decision she hurried to her room, desired the maid not to dress her hair, contenting herself with pinning a few roses into its natural curls. Then, in fierce haste, she made her throw on her sea-green dress of bombyx silk edged with fine embroidery, and fasten her peplos with the first pins that came to hand; and when the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Gretchen would run to the little closet and fetch Granny's old woolen shawl, which seemed almost as old as Granny herself. Gretchen always claimed the right to put the shawl over Granny's head, even though she had to climb onto the wooden bench to do it. After carefully pinning it under Granny's chin, she gave her a good-bye kiss, and Granny started out for her morning's work in the forest. This work was nothing more nor less than the gathering up of the twigs and branches which the autumn winds and winter frosts had thrown upon the ground. These were carefully gathered ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various

... second fear that had taken possession of her, and she resisted—almost broke away from him. His fingers slipped from her wrist, the nails scratching the flesh deeply, and she sprang toward the door. But he was upon her instantly, his arms around her, pinning her own to her sides, and then he squeezed her to him, so tightly that the breath almost left her body, and kissed her three or four times full on the lips. Then, still holding her, and looking in her eyes with an expression that filled her with ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer

... That kid was pinning him down, here, while the captain was probably fighting for his life! But the captain'd told him to stay with ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire

... forward against the bar with a belligerence suggesting that he wished to push it over, pinning his pleasant-spoken host to the wall, and pounded the top of it till ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... delegates—Stickney men all of them. And as my eye swept the curved double row of faces it seemed to me I saw there every man in town with a reputation as a gun-fighter or a knife-fighter or a fist-fighter; and every one of them wore, pinning his delegate's badge to his breast, a Stickney button that was round and bright red, like a clot of blood on ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb

... stood by a tree and kept shooting many missiles at the parapet. But this man by some chance was hit by a missile from an engine which was on a tower at his left. And passing through the corselet and the body of the man, the missile sank more than half its length into the tree, and pinning him to the spot where it entered the tree, it suspended him there a corpse. And when this was seen by the Goths they fell into great fear, and getting outside the range of missiles, they still remained in line, but no longer harassed those on ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius

... whereby we rejoice in 22:24 immortality, boundless freedom, and sinless sense, is not reached through paths of flowers nor by pinning one's faith without works to another's vicarious 22:27 effort. Whosoever believeth that wrath is righteous or that divinity is appeased by human suffering, does not ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... told of a man in London deprived of both legs and arms, who managed to write with his mouth and perform other things so remarkable as to enable him to earn a fair living. He would lay certain sheets of paper together, pinning them at the corner to make them hold. Then he would take a pen and write some verses; after which he would proceed to embellish the lines by many skillful flourishes. Dropping the pen from his mouth, he would next take up a needle and thread, also with his mouth, thread the ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... because of their liability to take cold in the process. Let such a person choose a room where the air is warm and dry. After wiping the hair thoroughly dry with towels, and pinning a fresh one around the neck and shoulders, let her get some one to come and make a breeze with a large palm-leaf fan upon her hair while she is engaged in carefully disentangling it with a brush and comb, occasionally ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... to disappear mysteriously, and turn up in unexpected places. Slipperton's pince-nez, for example, were lost, and found inside the piano. And Mrs. Slipperton's "false front" would be moved in the night from the dressing-table to the brass knob of the bed-post, even after she took to pinning it to the toilet cover. Things like that; irritating, ...
— The Psychical Researcher's Tale - The Sceptical Poltergeist - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • J. D. Beresford

... the house, and a few minutes later the big dining-room was the scene of great activity; the table strewn with the bright-hued pieces of material, Benita smoothing and pinning the patterns, the Senora superintending, and the girls cutting and snipping to their hearts' content. At the same time there went on an incessant chatter, chatter, to the ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs

... his captive back to the smelter, where finally, by judicious pushing and pulling, he succeeded in turning the monster flat upon its back and pinning it to the ground in spite of its struggles ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby

... excursions almost always alone, and to study in hermit-like isolation. After all, two people working together can accomplish far more than either one can do alone. In order, for instance, to utilize the interval spent in the time-consuming and mechanical work of preparing specimens, pinning insects and the like, we have agreed that while one is so employed the other shall read aloud. In this way we shall go through various works on physiology, ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... the man heard human voices he tried to attract their attention, but they had already heard and planned how best to reach him. He could not move, as those limbs which had not suffered fractures, were rendered helpless by the weight of shale pinning them down. His chest was free, however, and in spite of the gashes and bruises all over his face and ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... the passage of forces for the subversion of legitimate authority, closing imperviously, so that no drop of power could ooze through in the opposite direction. Lord De Roos, long suspected of cheating at cards, would never have been convicted but for the resolution of an adversary, who, pinning his hand to the table with a fork, said to him blandly, "My Lord, if the ace of spades is not under your Lordship's hand, why, then, I beg your pardon!" It seems to us that a timely treatment of Governor ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... good wrestler as he was a good swordsman, but, with bitter anger in my heart and a vision of the haunted wood before my eyes, I think I could have wrestled with Hercules and won. Presently I threw him, and, pinning him down with my knee upon his breast, cried to Sparrow to cut the bridle reins from Black Lamoral and throw them to me. Though he had the Italian upon his hands, he managed to obey. With my free hand and my teeth I drew a thong about ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... wheelbarrow, and placed the wheelbarrow beside a large packing-box that was half full of excelsior. One after another, he stuffed the stockings with excelsior, till they looked like twelve long black sausages. Then he pinned the top of one stocking securely over the stuffed foot of another, pinning the top of a third to the foot of the second, the top of a fourth to the foot of the third—and continued operations in this fashion until the twelve stockings were the semblance of one long and sinuous black body, sufficiently suggestive to ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... the head of the ramp surprised him. For, though he had heard no signal, all the party but one plastered their bodies back against the wall, Dalgard pulling Raf into position beside him, the scout's muscular bare arm pinning the pilot into a narrow space. One merman stood at the crack of the door at the top of the ramp. He pushed the barrier ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton

... covered, had but a poor chance. The leading rhinoceros had singled it out as the object of attack; and, before Harry and I could fire, rushing furiously forward, it pierced the poor animal through with its formidable horns, pinning it to the earth. When too late to save the quagga, we both pulled our triggers, when the animal, still dragging the body of its victim on, rushed forward ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston

... come up to my room after supper, and I didn't see her again until breakfast-time. She was at her place when I came down. She had put the napkin under her chin, instead of pinning it at the back, as was her custom. She called my attention to the new arrangement, and when I did not object she seemed pleased and patted herself. When she left the dining-room, she took my hand and patted it. I wondered if she was trying to "make up." I thought I would try the effect of a little ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... at, as it was formed of a number of oblong patches of cloth; but we had sewed it well by means of our sail-needle, so that it was strong, which was the chief point. Jack had also overcome the difficulty about the keel, by pinning to it a false keel. This was a piece of tough wood, of the same length and width as the real keel, and about five inches deep. He made it of this depth because the boat would be thereby rendered not only much ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... wrote to Ben, who was still up the line, that this here fine report he had made must of got lost; anyway, it seemed like the company had never got round to reading it or they wouldn't have took things so placid. By now he was pinning all his hopes to this report of Ben's if any justice was going to be done him in this world. He'd tell parties who doubted his story that he guessed they'd believe him fast enough if they ever got an eye on Ben's report, which ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... however, and pinning a small piece of paper upon a huge tree, whose trunk had served many times as a fireplace for parties of emigrants, like ourselves, bound to the mines, and by that means had nearly destroyed the vitality of the noble cedar, the ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... cries the Irish gintilman, pinning the poor dog down between the seats, with a force that ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... design is a symmetrical one, but to find the lions of England facing the wrong way in some completed piece of heraldic work would be most annoying. In order to get a tracing of the design upon the threads, a sheet of paper, with a distinct outline of the pattern upon it, must be attached, possibly by pinning, to the further side of the warp-threads, exactly where the weaving is to take place. The outline will be clearly perceivable through the threads, and the next process is to take pen and Indian ink and make a dot upon each warp-thread in sequence round the ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie

... it was St. Patrick's Day," she said to herself. "Nobody could possibly mistake me now for a Unionist. I'm labelled 'Home Rule' as plainly as can be." Then, hastily pinning on her hat before the mirror, she ran downstairs, ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... He was pinning something to my coat, a bronze-colored, cross-shaped something, a decoration that swung proudly from a ribbon of red and green. I knew it well; I had seen it on the breasts of generals, captains, simple poilus, all the picked flower of the French nation. With a thrill ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... owned that my case is very hard; but I hope I am the first, and for my country's sake I hope I shall be the last, to suffer by pinning my faith upon an English Act of Parliament. Had I received my just reward—for certainly it may be so called after forty years' close application of the talent which it has pleased God to give me—then ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... inches of a stout knitting needle mounted in a sheet brass bearing. The crank, a fragment of oak or other tough wood, is balanced, and has a throw of 5/8 inch. The crank-shaft hole should be a trifle small, so that the crank shall get a tight hold of the shaft without pinning. The collar, D, and wipe, W, are soldered to the shaft after this has been passed through its bearings. The brush B1 should press firmly, but not unnecessarily so, against the collar. For B2 one must use very springy brass strip, a piece about 3 inches long and 1/4 inch wide being ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams

... pinning a sweet-pea on her doll's head for a bonnet, and Rose finished arranging an acorn cup full of tiny green grapes for apples, ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 34, August 23, 1914 • Various

... treated the same way. When the boys handed him the fourth, one morning, as he was pinning it up over the others, he asked: "When do you get your money from ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)

... many that night. A good-sized river got in our way and had to be crossed. There was no bridge in sight, and we had determined to waste no time looking for one. So we undressed on the marshy bank and made bundles of our clothes, pinning our tunics about everything with the safety-pins which we carried. We also used the cord around the bundles. Ted was doubtful about swimming and carrying his clothes, so I said I would try it first, with mine. I went down through the coarse grass, which was harsh and prickly ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung

... yelled Tom. He opened his eyes and then felt the weight on his chest. A section of the control board had fallen across him pinning his left arm to his side. He reached for the railing around the acceleration chair with his right and discovered he still held the switch for the water sprinkler. He started to flip it on, then sniffed the air, ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell

... rule, exposed to the dangerous operations against which the French struggled so heroically and successfully. It was as though a small section of the front had been transferred to the heart of France. We saw the minister visiting a factory and pinning the Legion of Honour on to the breast of a worker blinded by yperite. We saw messages of congratulation from the front to the factories themselves. The morale was wonderful. As a result, the French mastered the technical difficulties ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden

... pictures of deep perspective the best mode of entrance is to triangulate in, with a series of zigzags, made easy through the habit of the eye to follow lines, especially long and receding ones. It is the long lines we seize upon in pinning the action of a figure, and the long lines which stretch toward us are those which help most to get us into ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore

... paroled officers who were on their way to Pont-a-Mousson. The roads were not safe for general officers; men wearing the blouse—escaped soldiers, or deserters, it may be—fell on them with pitch-forks and endeavored to take their life as traitors, credulously pinning their faith to that legend of bargain and sale which, even twenty years later, was to continue to shed its opprobrium upon those leaders who had commanded ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... twice, as they did at Uncle Jack, which in itself would be a bore, except that Nan also might look. Aware of these things and hiding them in his soul, he held himself tight, shut his mouth close, and challenged you with a spectacled eye, pinning you down as if to say: "I am born in every particular as I didn't want to be, but take notice that I'll have no light recognition of the hateful trick they did me. I am in training for a husky fellow. I haven't let up on myself one instant since I found out how horrible ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... looked forward to the Governor's ball, pinning his faith to Nevill's predictions; but when the moment came, his excitement fell like the wind at sunset. It did not seem possible that, after weeks of suspense, he should have news now, or ever. He went with Nevill to the summer palace, feeling dull and depressed. ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... risen to her full height, which measured more feet and inches than her latest kitchen door records verified, and her hair now wound around her head like a big brown braided coffee cake, added a few more inches, in spite of all the flat pinning Dozia took refuge in. It may be attractive to be tall and slender, but somehow old Dame Nature has a way of keeping her pets humble. She loves ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft

... tone. "I have heard of that great river, which the French King claims to have discovered, and which they say he will guard with a chain of forts right away from Canada, and will thus command all the New World of the West, pinning us English within the limits of that portion of land lying betwixt the ocean and the range of the Allegheny Mountains," and Humphrey waved his hand in that direction, and looked questioningly at the ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... organization and leaders. Most of the aristocracy and wealth of Virginia was arrayed against them, while the government was in the hands of a man noted for his passionate attachment to the Throne. The Parliamentary party must have felt it best to await the event of the struggle in England, pinning their hopes upon the success of their comrades there. But even after Parliament had won the victory, after the King had been executed, they were not strong enough to overthrow Berkeley's government and force Virginia into obedience to ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... began pinning on her hat. Her sister, for all her vexation over the ending of the interview, could hardly repress a smile of superior wisdom at the other's face of tragedy. "Don't go, Lyddie, don't go!" She tried to put her arms around the flighty young thing. "Oh, dear Lydia, cultivate your sense ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield

... rice-swamps, and King Cotton himself, that blustering old despot, with his swarthy arms and "under-pinning," his face of brass, and body of "raw material," passed through my mind, like Georgia trains through the Oconee Swamp, till finally my darky friend came into view. He seemed at first a little child, amid the blazing ruins of his wilderness home, gazing in stupid ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore

... German corps of officers clung to the old principles of army organisation was worthy of a better cause. Pinning their faith to their glorious traditions, all criticism was set down as malicious gossip, even if it came from their own midst. To an ideal of such doubtful value they devoted their industry and strength. And it was strange how little the analogy of the miserable ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... She had heard of a case from a neighbouring village of a man who had been reported dead, and who afterwards wrote from a prison camp in Germany, and she clung to this precedent with a confident tenacity that we did not try to weaken. It was foolish, of course, we said. She was pinning her faith to a case in a thousand; but the hope gave the women something to live for, and the wound would heal ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)

... want to look at a garden!" clamored little Mark, outraged at the idea. "I want to be let go up to Aunt Hetty's yattic where the sword and 'pinning-wheel are." ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... thrilled even stolid Tom with fresh admiration for that young adventurer. Hervey Willetts was no handbook scout, but Tom would not have him different than he was—no, not by a hair. He thought how Skinny's beginning at the wrong end was like his pinning of the badge on the wrong side of his breast. Poor ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... manageria indignation from the head of its blower: as it now stands, "one fiddle" among many, the faulty individual will, I hope, escape detection. The story of the flying play-bill is calculated to expose a practice much too common, of pinning play- bills to the cushions insecurely, and frequently, I fear, not pinning them at all, if these lines save one play-bill only front the fate I have recorded, I shall not deem my labour ill employed. The concluding episode of Patrick Jennings glances at the boorish ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith

... no less than a captain. Your lack of years puts such a reward beyond my power to give. I can, however, and I am authorized so to do, to confer upon you the cross of war, given only to men of proved heroism. Remi, I decorate you with this cross,' said the colonel, stepping forward and pinning the medal to the little soldier's breast, his aides standing at attention during the impressive ceremony. 'Wear it with honor, my ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce

... bed always lumpy, the sheets always damp, was home to Freddy. Florette made it warm and cozy even when there was no heat in the radiator. She had all sorts of clever home-making tricks. She toasted marshmallows over the gas jet; she spread a shawl on the trunk; or she surprised Freddy by pinning pictures out of the funny page on the wall. She could make the nicest tea on a little alcohol stove she carried in her trunk. There was always a little feast after the theatre on the table that invariably wabbled. Freddy would pretend that the foot of the ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... structures, the steel frame buildings, even the score or more in course of construction, escaping injury from the earthquake shock. Of the former, one of the most complete wrecks was the Valencia Hotel, a four-story wooden building, which collapsed into a heap of ruins, pinning many ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various

... aspect as came over John Splendid in every feature. The vain trim man of a minute ago, stroking his chin and showing a white hand (for the entertainment of the woman he must always be forgetting was without her sight), balancing and posturing on well-curved legs, and jauntily pinning his plaid on his shoulder, in a flash lost backbone. He stepped a pace back, as if some one had struck him a blow, his jaw fell, and ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... pinning on more tickets?" asked Hamilton. "I thought when they took off the tickets upstairs that would be the end ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... just "letting down her curtain and pinning it with a star," as the slave-girl seated herself on a sofa by the window, and began meditating upon her eventful history, meanwhile watching the white waves as they seemed to sport with each other in the wake of the noble vessel, with the rising moon reflecting its ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown

... Writer has so great a Value for his own Judgment in Matters of Stile, that he has put his Name to his Letter, and a Name greater than his own, as if he meant to Bully us into his Methods for pinning down our Language and making it as Criminal to admit Foreign Words as Foreign Trades, tho' our Tongue may be enrich'd by the one, as much as our Traffick by the other. [Sidenote: Page 28.] He would have it corrected, enlarg'd and ascertain'd and who must do it? He tells you with great Modesty ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon

... you,' returned Ratsey, 'not wishing to waste thought on such idle matters, and having to examine this wall whether the floods have not so damaged it as to need under-pinning; so if you have time to gad about of a morning, get you back to my workshop and fetch me a plasterer's hammer which I have left behind, so that I can try ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... building. As I flew into Spruce Street I brought up smack against two men coming out of the side door. One of them I knocked off his feet into a snowdrift. He floundered about in it and swore dreadfully. By the voice I knew that it was Mr. Shanks. I stood petrified, mechanically pinning his slouch hat to the ground with my toe. He got upon his feet at last and came toward me, ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... much resistance in the pin, and so it allows the electricity to rush through it. People sometimes cause fuses to blow out by pinning pictures to electric lamp wires or by pinning the wires up ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne

... opening the boxes of old films and twined their contents about the floor, pinning them to the curtains, twining them about the legs of the chairs, all the time whistling the "Soldiers' Chorus." He found a candle in the butler's pantry and planted it with a steady hand in the heap of celluloid coils. This he lighted ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace

... very properly, will have none but trained women in her hospital. But even an untrained woman is equal to holding a lantern and pinning on tickets, so I implored Miss —— to let me take her place while she went back to rest in my room at Ghent, if it was only for one night. I used every argument I could think of, and for one second ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair

... her, Mamie Sue," Belle said, not knowing that I was behind the hat-rack, pinning on my hat. "But there never was a millionaire in Byrdsville before, and I don't see how a girl who is that rich can be really nice. The Bible says that it is harder for a rich man to get to heaven than ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess

... he knew that if he had studied even a reasonable amount of time he could easily have passed in every subject. It was by no means difficult work for a boy of his ability. But to be put off the ball team! Why, it was on his pitching that the whole Milburn school was pinning its faith in the coming game against Leighton Academy. "Peter will save the day!" the fellows had declared. What would they say when they discovered that their hero was to be dropped from the team—that he had not passed one of ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett

... which had been coiled on Wayne's saddle swung out in a perfect loop and tightened about Lutterfield, pinning his arms to his sides. His protests and roars of anger went unheeded and he rode on as ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton

... his horse ranch. It lay alone, and few visited it save Plimsoll's own associates. Rumors drifted concerning Plimsoll's remarkable herd increase of saleable horses but, unless proof of actual operation was forthcoming, there was small chance of pinning anything down in the way of illegal work. There was always the excuse of having rounded up a bunch of broom-tail wild horses to account for growing numbers, and, if he stole or not, Plimsoll left the horses of his own ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... controls of the attractors, which had never been entirely released from their prisoner, thus again pinning the Fenachrone helplessly against ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... dog so as to break his fall after he has been tossed by the bull; the tips of these [poles] are covered with thick leather to prevent them from disembowelling the dogs. The most spirited stroke is considered to be that of the dog who seizes the bull's lip, clinging to it and pinning the animal for some time; the second best hit is to seize the eyebrows; the third, but far inferior, consists in seizing the ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... laugh?" he asked, pinning her with his elbows, and advancing his face to hers. "What's there to cry at? Kiss me here." He indicated the spot where a kiss would ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster

... face, too, from mortification; but he resolutely set out on another exploration. He had given up the purse, pinning his last hope on stray coins. In the little change-pocket of his coat he found a ten-sen piece and five-copper sen; and remembering having recently missed a ten-sen piece, he cut the seam of the pocket and ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... and I was on the point of suggesting to Sergeant Corney that it would be wise to move back among the bushes lest some of the drunkards come upon us by mistake, when a heavy body suddenly fell, or was thrown, directly upon my back, pinning me to ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis

... strips of linen, four double." I then folded one, wet in arnica and water, and laid it on the collar bone, put two other bands, like a pair of suspenders, over the shoulders, crossing them both in front and behind, pinning the ends to the diaper, which gave the needed pressure without impeding the circulation anywhere. As I finished she gave me a look of budding confidence, and seemed satisfied that all was well. Several times, night and day, we wet the compress and readjusted the bands, until ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... partly Danish descent; and no one served more faithfully through the Great War than these men did against the submarines and mines. King George V, whose mother is a Dane, and who is himself a first-rate seaman, must have felt a thrill of ancestral pride in pinning V.C.'s over their undaunted hearts. Fifty years before the Norman conquest Canute the Dane became sole king of England. He had been chosen King of Denmark by the Danish Fleet. But he was true to England as well; and in 1028, when he conquered ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood

... handsome to look at, as it was formed of a number of oblong patches of cloth; but we had sewed it well by means of our sail-needle, so that it was strong, which was the chief point.—Jack had also overcome the difficulty about the keel by pinning to it a false keel. This was a piece of tough wood, of the same length and width as the real keel, and about five inches deep. He made it of this depth because the boat would be thereby rendered not only much more safe, but more able ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne

... for active exercise. The other garment is simply a large square piece of stuff, silken or woollen as it happens in accordance with the weather, and the rank of the wearer. In this a man swathes himself, somewhat as a Highlander does in his plaid, pinning it over the shoulder and leaving the arms free. When one is accustomed to it, this kind of dress is not uncomfortable, and many of the younger braves carried it with a good deal of grace, showing some fancy and originality in the dispositions of the folds. Though attired in this ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang

... of charms, and of course the rural maidens had a sure and infallible charm foretelling the future husband. On the eve of St. Valentine's day, the anxious damsel prepared for sleep by pinning to her pillow five bay leaves, one at each corner and one in the middle (which must have been delightful to sleep on, by the way). If she dreamed of her sweetheart, she was sure to marry him before the end ...
— Our Holidays - Their Meaning and Spirit; retold from St. Nicholas • Various

... sliding upwards, and you are ready to make a band of the chemise to support the womb and abdomen. Bring the chemise tightly together for two or three inches above the pelvis to form a band. Previous to pinning, draw the lump (womb) you feel above symphesis, up, then pin, and the belt you have made of the chemise will support the womb. All is safe now, but you must not leave for two hours. You may have delivered a feeble woman, who may flood to death after delivery of the child, if you do not leave ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still

... little; she looked down, straight before her. "I like my 'world' no better than you do, and it was not for its own sake I came into it. But what particular group of people is worth pinning one's faith upon? I confess it sometimes seems to me men and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I'm too romantic and always was. I've an unfortunate taste for poetic fitness. Life's hard prose, and one must learn to read prose contentedly. ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James

... brothers went off hand-in-hand into the wood, and returned in a minute with their arms full of things—such as bolsters, blankets, hearth-rugs, table-cloths, dish-covers and coal-scuttles. 'I hope you're a good hand at pinning and tying strings?' Tweedledum remarked. 'Every one of these things has got to go on, ...
— Through the Looking-Glass • Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll

... close. It was as if the whole thing had been prearranged. His hands suddenly shot out and seized Kid Wolf's arms—pinning them tightly. ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens

... from behind the ledge, some on pony back, some afoot, and bear down on the stricken form of the slender young rider now feebly striving to rise from the turf; saw the empty hand outstretched, imploring mercy; saw jabbing lances and brandished war-clubs pinning the helpless boy to earth and beating in the bared, defenseless head; saw the orderly dragged from under his struggling horse and butchered by his leader's side; saw the bloody knives at work tearing away the hot red scalps, then ripping off the blood-soaked clothing, and, to the music of savage ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King

... the materials with which you build. You must not make the walls without any reference to their composition or proportions, and then try to conceal the poverty and awkwardness of the structure by pinning up preposterous window-caps, hanging horrible brackets under the eaves that must always be in doubt whether they support the cornice or are supported by it, fixing fantastic verge-boards to the gables, ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner

... all haste to Sally's room, ready to do her best, but she found her charge already clad in travelling dress, pinning a veil about her hat, her gloves and purse laid out, and a bag packed with necessaries. The mind of the young mistress of the house was concerned less with her own preparations than with the comfort of those she was to ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond

... de Lavalliere, who was betrothed to him in her childhood." Stupid not to see this for oneself. So obvious. Enter Louise. Think Raoul informs her in pantomime that one of the bows on her dress has "come undone;" she rewards him for this act of politeness by taking the bow off and pinning it on his breast. Raoul not satisfied, pleads for another, to put on his hat. Louise refuses, can't ruin her new frock like that for him. Find I'm wrong again. Argument says, "he implores her ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 25, 1892 • Various

... been heard of, nor seen the light, since its presentation, and was at last found in a lumber closet, in a strong box, in Indian packing. It was a compromise between an epergne and a candelabrum, growing out of the howdah of an unfortunate elephant, pinning one tiger to the ground, and with another hanging on behind, in the midst of a jungle of palm-trees and cobras; and beneath was an elaborate inscription, so laudatory of Aubrey Spencer, M. D., that nobody wondered he had never unpacked it, and ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... put an end to his endeavours by jumping upon the mop and pinning it to the floor very much as he would have stamped upon a ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... fail, and I whirled up my sword to strike—and then a long flash of light from a spear point smote me, and over me the man rode, pinning me to the ground with the spear through my left shoulder. His horse trod on me, and the man wrenched the weapon from me as he passed on, and I had but time to call out to Leof to warn him, when a rushing came in my ears, ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler

... nevertheless, had left its mark upon her young face; had drawn the skin over the aquiline profile, and compressed the sensitive mouth in a line too rigid for her years. This severity of feature she aggravated by pinning her coiffe low over a forehead as uncompromising as a nun's. Not a relenting suggestion of hair would she permit. Yet whatever of tenderness or hope she strove thus to hood, nothing could suppress the beauty of her luminous eyes; caressing ...
— Where the Sabots Clatter Again • Katherine Shortall

... screens. Still, this was, in a sense, a news release, and therefore in all probability hurried to the public. Art Osgood might still be at Nogales, Mexico, wherever that was. He might; and Jean made up her mind and laid her plans while she sat there pinning on her hat. ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower

... about it. I'll say that for her." Then she read the letter again while Sir Coupland spun out his cup of coffee. She was still dwelling on it when he looked at his watch suddenly and said: "I must be off. Consider Prince Hohenschlangen's necrosis!" Then said Gwen, pinning him to truth with the splendour of her eyes:—"You are perfectly and absolutely certain, Dr. Merridew, that a momentary gleam of true vision in such a case ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... cold, the old clocks chimed the hours into the winter dark, where, remote from man's restless spirit, the old town brooded above plain and river under the morning stars. And the girl dreamed—dreamed of a sweetheart under the acacias by her home, of his pinning their white flowers into her hair, till she woke with a little laugh. Light was already coming through the shutter chinks, the fire was but red embers and white ash. She gathered it stealthily together, put on fresh logs, and stole over to the couch. Oh! how white! how still! Was her mistress dead? ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy

... you villain!—you traitor—out of my house," cried the widow, pushing at him with such force as to drive him against the wall, and pinning him there while Babette charged him in his face, which was now streaming with blood. The attack was now followed up with such vigour, that Vanslyperken was first obliged to retreat to the door, then out of the door into the street; followed into the street, he took to his ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... close and with a swift movement she reached for it. As her fingers grasped its butt she heard a slight sound and Yuma was upon her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides. She felt his breath on her neck, heard his laugh, exultant and derisive, mocking her. His right hand, gripping hers tightly, was slipping slowly down toward the hand that held the revolver. She struggled desperately, squirming and twisting in his grasp, silently matching ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer

... I will, sister," replied Anne; and, pinning on her hat, she left her small cottage and started toward ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower

... Lord Holme's new car, which was taking Lady Holme to Cadogan Square at a rapid pace, skidded and overturned, pinning Lady Holme beneath it. While she was on the ground a hansom cab ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens

... posts have their tops cut off square and the arms fastened to them by means of lag screws. A better way from a mechanical point of view would be to shoulder the top ends on the four sides, cut through-mortises in the arms and insert these tenoned posts into these mortises, pinning the arm to the post by means of small dowels in the edge of the ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part 2 • H. H. Windsor

... direct one, and passes the old church of St. Mark, outside which there are some charming fifteenth-century frescoes by nobody in particular, and among them a cow who, at the instance of St. Mark, is pinning a bear or wolf to a tree in ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler

... of his hat, while the coachmen, too, ornament therewith the ears of their horses. Inside the church the wedding favours are also distributed, and a gay, gallant, and animated scene ensues, as each bridesmaid pins on to the coat of each bridegroomsman a wedding favour, which he returns by pinning one also on her shoulder. Every "favour" is carefully furnished with two pins for this purpose; and it is amazing to see the flutter, the coquettish smiling, and the frequent pricking of fingers, which the performance of this piquant ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge

... bedchamber one night by the Empress Eugenie, and was always kept locked except on gala occasions. I, not knowing how I had been over-praised to the audience, was also ready, quivering with the haste I had made in pinning up the pictures and opening the musty, close room to the air. Then came ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... jamming down and pinning into a small taffy-colored turban, her hair, the exact shade of it, escaping in scallops. Carefully powdered-out lines of her face seemed to emerge suddenly through the conserved creaminess of her skin. Thirty-four, in its unguarded moments, will out. Miss Becker had almost detained twenty's ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst

... moments she considered slipping her hand in the bag and quickly pinning the badge on her pretty rose-colored sweater. Then she could walk over to the drilling troop, and introduce herself as a visiting scout, sure to ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis

... exclaimed Polly, in horror, pausing as she was pinning on her big, flowered hat, with the roses all around the brim; "O dear me, there it goes!" as the hat spun over into ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney

... responsible for it. They were groping in the dark, and did the best they knew, according to their lights. But Japanese work was not known at that time, and, but for that, the Pattern artist of to-day might still be occupied in pinning leaves and flowers against the wall. It was, moreover, a protest against the Cabbage Rose on the Hearth rug, that some may still remember ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various

... some lovely Clothes, mostly imported, but they had a woman come in and sow for me. Hannah and she used to interupt my most precious Moments at my desk by running a tape measure around me, or pinning a paper pattern to me. The sowing woman always had her mouth full of Pins, and once, owing to my remarking that I wished I had been illagitimate, so I could go away and live my own life, she swallowed one. It caused a grate ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... through all the disappointments of the countryman turned townsman. Persecuted by bad luck, borne down by the burden, for all his energy and good will, he was far indeed from starting me in entomology. He had other cares, cares more direct and more serious. A good cuff or two when he saw me pinning an insect to a cork was all the encouragement that I received from him. Perhaps he ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... footstool ready for her feet. I doubt also the headgear. Fanny on that occasion was dressed in her morning apparel, and had walked through the streets, carried no fan, and wore no brooch but one that might be necessary for pinning her shawl. ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... Izzie, "what are you about? Pinning on your bonnet-string! Mercy on me, what shiftless thing will you do next? Now stand still, and don't fidget. You sha'n't stir till I have ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge

... stopped, and quickly tearing it to pieces, came rushing on faster than before. Dio, now again turning round, pole in hand, stood ready for the attack, the next instant he plunged it into the wolf's side, pinning the creature to the ice. Even then, so violent were its struggles, that it would have broken away, had I not come up and finished it with a blow of ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston

... on his heels. Don't you pay any attention to those fellows, Nick. Stick to your game through thick and thin. Every day you go on as you have been doing you win fresh friends. Even Mr. Leonard, who used to fairly detest you, is now singing your praises; and Dr. Carmack told me he was pinning his faith on you. He's a long-headed man, Nick, a very far-seeing man, who knows boys and is not easily deceived. He believes in you; so do I, and a lot of other fellows. You're going to make ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson

... bleeding freely from a bullet graze on the top of the left ear, and with one leg of his trousers slit from ankle to knee by a rusty nail, that had also ploughed a nasty furrow up his leg. But now he seized Guillaume's revolver, and dragged the old fellow out of the hut. Then he sat down on his chest, pinning his arms together on the ground ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope

... she cries, "to come and see me, when you must be so busy, pinning bits of drapery over your doors, and heaping flowers into enormous vases. Can I come in and help? I am splendid at decorations, you know," remembering Giddy's cynical remarks on her artistic efforts, and ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham

... writer has no pretensions to a knowledge of heraldic terms and devices; so, without pinning any argument on the coincidence, he thought it not without interest. He is aware that the mere fact of a similarity between surnames and crests is not without its parallel in ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 79, May 3, 1851 • Various

... instrument of torture, which raised up a bar of livid flesh as it was inflicted. Smarting with the agony of the blow, and concentrating into that one moment all his feelings of rage, scorn, and indignation, Nicholas sprang upon him, wrested the weapon from his hand, and pinning him by the throat, beat the ruffian ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... discloses that Page was pinning his faith in President Wilson, and that he still had confidence in the President's determination to uphold the national honour. Page was not one of those who thought that the United States should declare war immediately after the Lusitania. The President's course, ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick

... a gentleman and he was my friend. I never dreamed of pinning him down to promises in writing. I thought his word was enough. I never dreamed of his going back on it. And after compromising me ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair

... exactly how he thought about her, Lady Locke could not tell; nor could she precisely tell either how she thought about him. He began to mean something to her. That was all she could say even to herself. She dressed for dinner very slowly that evening. Her window was open, and as she was pinning some yellow roses in the front of her gown, having dismissed her maid, she heard the piping, excited voice of Tommy asking a question of some hidden ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens

... dressing very quick and easy. These are the most approved modern styles for dressing infants, and with long cashmere stockings pinned to the diapers the little feet are free to kick with no old-fashioned pinning blanket to torture the naturally active, healthy child, and retard its development. If tight bands are an injury to grown people, then in the name of pity emancipate the poor little infant from ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... oblivious to our presence or to Hawkinson's steady grinding of the camera. In the war-dance the participants, who were Moro fighting men, and were armed with spears, shields, and the vicious, broad-bladed knives known as barongs, gave a highly realistic representation of pinning an enemy to the earth with a spear, and with the barong decapitating him. The first part of the dance, before the passions of the savages became aroused, ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... there protruding above the covering-board. She was sunk so low in the water that her channels were buried; and the water that was in her, making its way slowly and with difficulty through the interstices of her cargo, had at this time collected forward, and was pinning her head down to such an extent that her bows were unable to lift to the 'scend of the sea, with the result that every sea broke, hissing white, over her topgallant forecastle, and swept right aft to the poop, against the front of which it dashed itself, as against ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... and every incident of the transit Mr. Fetherbee took in perfectly good part. Yet it may be questioned whether he would have arrived at the goal intact, had it not been for the timely splitting of an under-pinning of the wagon, which caused a sudden collapse in the bows of the storm-tossed bark, and obliged the travellers to descend while yet half a mile ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller

... darted forward to seize him, but another terrific blast struck the mill, pinning Tom against the woodwork, and literally driving his uncle back from the opening, while the telescope swung round upon its pivot, and various objects were blown ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn

... down to our homes by innumerable fibres, trivial as that I have just recalled; but Gulliver was fixed to the soil, you remember, by pinning his head a hair at a time. Even a stone with a whitish band crossing it, belonging to the pavement of the back-yard, insisted on becoming one of the talismans of memory. This intussusception of the ideas of inanimate objects, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... andrews, so that the floor could no longer be seen. A party of lords had overset a table in their efforts to get to the nymphs. The Queen was schooled to go out behind the arras, and the ladies, laughing, calling to each other and to the men at the other tables, and pinning up their hoods, filed ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... opening. As she stood brushing her wealth of gold with full-length sweeps of her arm, she was at an angle that brought her facing the mirror before which Nancy Ellen sat training waves and pinning up loose braids. Her hair was beautiful and she slowly smiled at her image as she tried different effects of wave, loose curl, braids high piled or flat. Across her bed lay a dress that was a reproduction of one ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter



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