Pinning

How to spell pinning

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce pinning

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does pinning mean?

1. verbAttaching or holding something in place with a pin, pins, or a similar fastener.
2. verbHolding a person or thing down firmly so it cannot move.
3. verbAttributing responsibility or blame for something to a particular person.

Pinning in a sentence

• She spent the morning pinning the pattern pieces to the fabric.

• The wrestler was pinning his opponent to the mat.

• The manager was pinning the delay on the suppliers.

• The tailor was pinning the hem before stitching it.

• The fallen branch ended up pinning the car against the fence.

• They kept pinning the mistake on the new recruit.

Where does pinning come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the present participle of the verb 'pin', which traces back to the Old English noun 'pinn', meaning a peg, bolt, or pointed stake used to hold things together. Scholars generally connect 'pinn' to the Latin 'pinna', meaning a feather, wing, fin, or sharp point, which is also the source of related ideas about projecting spikes. The basic sense of fixing one thing to another with a slender pointed object has stayed remarkably stable for well over a thousand years. When 'pin' became a verb, English followed its standard rule of doubling the final consonant before '-ing' because the single short vowel is stressed, giving 'pinning' rather than 'pining'; that doubled 'n' is exactly the spelling trap, since 'pining' (longing for something) is a completely different word. The same short-vowel doubling logic governs pairs like 'hopping' versus 'hoping'.

How the word is built

• pin (peg, fastener)
• -n- (doubled consonant after a short stressed vowel)
• -ing (present participle/gerund)