different between limb vs pinion

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /l?m/
• Rhymes: -?m
• Homophones: limn, Lymm

Etymology 1

From Middle English lyme, lim, from Old English lim (“limb, branch”), from Proto-Germanic *limuz (“branch, limb”). Cognate with Old Norse limr (“limb”). The silent -b began to appear in the late 1500s.

Noun

limb (plural limbs)

1. A major appendage of human or animal, used for locomotion (such as an arm, leg or wing).

   • Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, with […] on one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust from which gnarled and rusty stalks thrust themselves up like withered elfin limbs.

2. A branch of a tree.

   Synonym: bough

3. (archery) The part of the bow, from the handle to the tip.
4. An elementary piece of the mechanism of a lock.
5. A thing or person regarded as a part or member of, or attachment to, something else.
6. (botany) The part of a corolla beyond the throat.
7. Short for limb of Satan (“a wicked or mischievous child”).

Derived terms

• go out on a limb
• life and limb

Translations

Verb

limb (third-person singular simple present limbs, present participle limbing, simple past and past participle limbed)

1. (transitive) To remove the limbs from (an animal or tree).

2. (transitive) To supply with limbs.
   • 1859, Henry D. Thoreau, Walden

     Man was not made so large limbed and robust but that he must seek to narrow his world and wall in a space such as fitted him.

Synonyms

• delimb

Translations

Etymology 2

From Latin limbus (“border”).

Noun

limb (plural limbs)

1. (astronomy) The apparent visual edge of a celestial body.

   solar limb

2. (on a measuring instrument) The graduated edge of a circle or arc.
3. (botany) The border or upper spreading part of a monopetalous corolla, or of a petal or sepal; blade.

Translations

See also

Anagrams

• blim

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?p?nj?n/
• Rhymes: -?nj?n
• Hyphenation: pin?ion

Etymology 1

From Old French pignon, from Latin penna (“feather”).

Noun

pinion (plural pinions)

1. A wing.
2. (ornithology) The joint of a bird's wing farthest from the body.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Johnson to this entry?)

3. (ornithology) Any of the outermost primary feathers on a bird's wing.
4. A moth of the genus Lithophane.
5. (obsolete) A fetter for the arm.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Ainsworth to this entry?)

Verb

pinion (third-person singular simple present pinions, present participle pinioning, simple past and past participle pinioned) (transitive)

1. To cut off the pinion of a bird’s wing, or otherwise disable or bind its wings, in order to prevent it from flying.
   • 1577, Barnabe Googe (translator), Konrad Heresbach (author), Foure Bookes of Husbandrie, book iv (1586), page 169:

     They that meane to fatte Pigions…some…do softly tie their Legges:…some vse onely to pinion them.

   • 1641–2, Henry Best (author), Donald Woodward (editor), The Farming and Memorandum Books of Henry Best of Elmswell, 1642: With a Glossary and Linguistic Commentary by Peter McClure, Oxford University Press/British Academy (1984), ?ISBN (10), ?ISBN (13), page 115:

     When they are aboute fortnights olde (for they must bee driven noe longer) yow must watch where the henne useth to sitte on nights, and come when it beginneth to bee darke and throwe somethinge over the henne as shee broodeth them, then take and clippe every of theire right wings. Then when they are aboute moneths old, yow must come after the same manner and pinnion or cutte a joynte of every of theire right winges.

   • ibidem, page 129:

     The Swanners gette up the younge swannes about midsummer [24 June] and footemarke them for the owners, and then doe they allsoe pinnion them, cuttinge a joynte of theire right winges, and then att Michaellmasse [29 Sept.] doe they bringe them hoame, or else bringe hoame some, and leave the rest att some of the mills and wee sende for them.

   • 1665–1667, Abraham Cowley, The Works of M^r Abraham Cowley (fifth edition, 1678), “Several Di?cour?es by way of E??ays, in Ver?e and Pro?e”, essay 9: ‘The ?hortne?s of Life and uncertainty of Riches’, closing verses, verse 3 (page 138):

     Suppo?e, thou Fortune could to tamene?s bring, / And clip or pinion her wing; / Suppo?e thou could’?t on Fate ?o far prevail / As not to cut off thy Entail.

   • 1727, Peter Longueville, Philip Quarll (1816), page 67:

     The two old ducks…being pinioned, could not fly away.

   • 1849, Daniel Jay Browne, The American Poultry Yard (1855), page 242:

     They…should have been pinioned at the first joint of the wing.

2. To bind the arms of someone, so as to deprive him of their use; to disable by so binding.

   Synonym: shackle

   • 1916, James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Macmillan Press Ltd, paperback, page 80

     Nash pinioned his arms behind while Boland seized a long cabbage stump which was lying in the gutter.

3. (transferred sense, figuratively) To restrain; to limit.
   • 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot Chapter IX

     I was suddenly seized from behind and thrown to earth. As I fell, a warm body fell on top of me, and hands grasped my arms and legs. When I could look up, I saw a number of giant fingers pinioning me down, while others stood about surveying me.

   • 1999: Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane, Sleepy Hollow, scene 14

     I am pinioned by a chain of reasoning! Why else do his four friends conspire to conceal […]

Derived terms

• pinioned
• pinioner
• pinioning

Translations

Etymology 2

Borrowed from French pignon.

Noun

pinion (plural pinions)

1. (mechanical engineering) The smallest gear in a gear train.
   • 1844, Edgar Allan Poe, The Premature Burial

     A certain period elapses, and some unseen mysterious principle again sets in motion the magic pinions and the wizard wheels.

Derived terms

• rack and pinion

Translations

Further reading

• pinion on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• pinioning on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• flight feather on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

References

• “Pinion, v.” listed on page 883/2–3 of volume VII (O–P, ed. James Augustus Henry Murray, 1908) of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (1st ed.)

Chuukese

Etymology

Borrowed from English billion.

Numeral

pinion

1. billion

Romanian

Etymology

From French pignon.

Noun

pinion n (plural pinioane)

1. gearwheel

Declension