pinch – English noun declension

English noun forms of pinch

Noun: pinch
Singularpinch
Pluralpinches

Sample Sentences

  • I gave the leather of the sofa a pinch, gauging the texture.
  • Mix about four cups of white flour with a pinch of salt.
  • And wel his merits ſhew him to be made
  • His Fortunes maiſter, and the king of men.
  • That could perſwade at ſuch a ſodaine pinch,
  • With reaſons of his valour and his life,
  • A thouſand ſworne and ouer-matching foes: [c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene i:]
  • It took nerve and muscle both to carry the body out and down the stairs to the lower hall, but he damn well had to get it out of his place and away from his door, and any of those four could have done it in a pinch, and it sure was a pinch. [1955 October, Rex Stout, “Die Like a Dog”, in Three Witnesses, Bantam, published 1994, →ISBN, page 171:]
  • It looked like an hourglass, but all those little glittering shapes tumbling through the pinch were seconds. [2001, Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time:]
  • Down several steep pinches the lubra went sprawling[.] [1937, Ion L. Idriess, Over the Range, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, published 1947, page 283:]

Etymology

From Middle English pinchen, from Old Northern French *pinchier (compare Old French pincier, pincer (“to pinch”)), a word of uncertain origin, possibly from Vulgar Latin *pinciāre (“to puncture, pinch”), from a merger of *punctiāre (“to puncture, sting”), from Latin punctiō (“a puncture, prick”) and *piccāre (“to strike, sting”), from Frankish *pikkōn, from Proto-Germanic *pikkōną (“to pick, peck, prick”). More at point, pick and pitch. See: Latin Nouns 'punctiō'.

Verbs referencing "pinch"

Romanian Nouns pic.