pinch.
To squeeze a small amount of a person's skin and flesh, making it hurt.
Meaning & usage
To squeeze a small amount of a person's skin and flesh, making it hurt.
The children were scolded for pinching each other.
This shoe pinches my foot.
To squeeze between the thumb and forefinger.
To squeeze between two objects.
Of clothing, to be uncomfortably tight in specific spots.
To steal, usually something inconsequential.
Someone has pinched my handkerchief!
To arrest or capture.
To cut shoots or buds of a plant in order to shape the plant, or to improve its yield.
To sail so close-hauled that the sails begin to flutter.
To take hold; to grip, as a dog does.
To be stingy or covetous; to live sparingly.
To seize; to grip; to bite.
To cramp; to straiten; to oppress; to starve.
to be pinched for money
To move, as a railroad car, by prying the wheels with a pinch.
To complain or find fault.
Where this word comes from
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.
The action of squeezing a small amount of a person's skin and flesh, making it hurt.
A close compression of anything with the fingers.
I gave the leather of the sofa a pinch, gauging the texture.
A small amount of powder or granules, such that the amount could be held between fingertip and thumb tip.
Mix about four cups of white flour with a pinch of salt.
An awkward situation of some kind (especially money or social) which is difficult to escape.
A metal bar used as a lever for lifting weights, rolling wheels, etc.
An organic herbal smoke additive.
A magnetic compression of an electrically conducting filament.
The narrow part connecting the two bulbs of an hourglass.
An arrest.
A steep incline; a very steep section of road.
Where this word comes from
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.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.