different between pinion vs bough

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

English

Alternative forms

• bow, bowe (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English bough, bowe, bogh, bo?e, bo?, from Old English b?h, b?g (“arm; shoulder; bough”), from Proto-Germanic *b?guz (“upper arm; shoulder”) (compare German Bug (“shoulder, hock, joint”)), from Proto-Indo-European *b?eh???ús (“forearm, elbow”) (compare Ancient Greek ????? (pêkhus, “forearm”), Old Armenian ?????? (bazuk, “arm, forearm, bough”), Persian ????? (b?zu, “upper arm”), Sanskrit ???? (b?hú, “arm”)).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ba?/
• Homophone: bow
• Rhymes: -a?

Noun

bough (plural boughs)

1. A firm branch of a tree.
   • 2013, J. M. Coetzee, The Childhood of Jesus. Melbourne, Australia: The Text Publishing Company, chapter 18. p. 172:

     A pair of birds settle on the bough above them, murmuring together, ready to roost.

2. (obsolete, poetic) The gallows.

Derived terms

• cut not the bough that you are standing upon

Translations

Further reading

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “bough”, in Online Etymology Dictionary