PINION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does pinion mean? 

• PINION (noun)
  The noun PINION has 3 senses:

1. a gear with a small number of teeth designed to mesh with a larger wheel or rack

2. any of the larger wing or tail feathers of a bird

3. wing of a bird

  Familiarity information: PINION used as a noun is uncommon.

• PINION (verb)
  The verb PINION has 2 senses:

1. bind the arms of

2. cut the wings off (of birds)

  Familiarity information: PINION used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PINION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A gear with a small number of teeth designed to mesh with a larger wheel or rack

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("pinion" is a kind of...):

cogwheel; gear; gear wheel; geared wheel (a toothed wheel that engages another toothed mechanism in order to change the speed or direction of transmitted motion)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "pinion"):

lantern pinion; lantern wheel (a small pinion having cylindrical bars instead of teeth, used chiefly in inexpensive clocks)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Any of the larger wing or tail feathers of a bird

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

flight feather; pinion; quill; quill feather

Hypernyms ("pinion" is a kind of...):

feather; plumage; plume (the light horny waterproof structure forming the external covering of birds)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "pinion"):

primary; primary feather; primary quill (one of the main flight feathers projecting along the outer edge of a bird's wing)

tail feather (feather growing from the tail (uropygium) of a bird)

Holonyms ("pinion" is a part of...):

wing (a movable organ for flying (one of a pair))

Derivation:

pinion (cut the wings off (of birds))

Sense 3

Meaning:

Wing of a bird

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

pennon; pinion

Hypernyms ("pinion" is a kind of...):

wing (a movable organ for flying (one of a pair))

Holonyms ("pinion" is a part of...):

bird (warm-blooded egg-laying vertebrates characterized by feathers and forelimbs modified as wings)

Derivation:

pinion (cut the wings off (of birds))

• PINION (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they pinion    ... he / she / it pinions   
Past simple: pinioned   
Past participle: pinioned   
-ing form: pinioning   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Bind the arms of

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

pinion; shackle

Hypernyms (to "pinion" is one way to...):

confine; constrain; hold; restrain (to close within bounds, or otherwise limit or deprive of free movement)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sentence example:

They want to pinion the prisoners

Sense 2

Meaning:

Cut the wings off (of birds)

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "pinion" is one way to...):

disable; disenable; incapacitate (make unable to perform a certain action)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

pinion (wing of a bird)

pinion (any of the larger wing or tail feathers of a bird)

 Context examples 

At last he mastered her arms; Grace Poole gave him a cord, and he pinioned them behind her: with more rope, which was at hand, he bound her to a chair.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

And there all day, and day after day, there was bustle and crowding and labor, while the great ships loaded up, and one after the other spread their white pinions and darted off to the open sea, amid the clash of cymbals and rolling of drums and lusty shouts of those who went and of those who waited.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

We were boarded about the same time by both the pirates, who entered furiously at the head of their men; but finding us all prostrate upon our faces (for so I gave order), they pinioned us with strong ropes, and setting guard upon us, went to search the sloop.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

In my own mind I had determined that if I were sure, from the rigidity of his gaze, that it had caught his eye, I would at once spring out, throw my great coat over his head, pinion him, and leave the rest to Holmes.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I felt as if I had been living in a palace of cards, which had tumbled down, leaving only Miss Mills and me among the ruins; I felt as if some grim enchanter had drawn a magic circle round the innocent goddess of my heart, which nothing indeed but those same strong pinions, capable of carrying so many people over so much, would enable me to enter!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

“It is an old bowyer's rede that the second feather of a fenny goose is better than the pinion of a tame one. Draw on old lad, for I have come between you and the clout.”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It trembled for Mr. Rochester and his doom; it bemoaned him with bitter pity; it demanded him with ceaseless longing; and, impotent as a bird with both wings broken, it still quivered its shattered pinions in vain attempts to seek him.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Here were the gold mullets of the Pakingtons, the sable and ermine of the Mackworths, the scarlet bars of the Wakes, the gold and blue of the Grosvenors, the cinque-foils of the Cliftons, the annulets of the Musgraves, the silver pinions of the Beauchamps, the crosses of the Molineaux, the bloody chevron of the Woodhouses, the red and silver of the Worsleys, the swords of the Clarks, the boars'-heads of the Lucies, the crescents of the Boyntons, and the wolf and dagger of the Lipscombs.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)