different between pinion vs branch

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

• braunch (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English branche, braunche, bronche, borrowed from Old French branche, brance, from Late Latin branca (“footprint”, later also “paw, claw”), of unknown origin, possibly from Gaulish *vranca, from Proto-Indo-European *wrónk-eh?.

Indo-European cognates include Old Norse vró (“angle, corner”), Lithuanian rankà (“hand”), Old Church Slavonic ???? (r?ka, “hand”), Albanian rangë (“yardwork”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: bränch, IPA^(key): /b???nt?/
• (US, Northern England) enPR: br?nch, IPA^(key): /b?ænt?/
• Rhymes: -??nt?, -ænt?

Noun

branch (plural branches)

2. The woody part of a tree arising from the trunk and usually dividing.
3. Any of the parts of something that divides like the branch of a tree.

4. (chiefly Southern US) A creek or stream which flows into a larger river. (compare Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia run, and New York and New England brook.)
5. (geometry) One of the portions of a curve that extends outwards to an indefinitely great distance.

6. A location of an organization with several locations.

8. A line of family descent, in distinction from some other line or lines from the same stock; any descendant in such a line.
   • 1602, Richard Carew, Survey of Cornwall

     his father, a younger branch of the ancient stock

9. (Mormonism) A local congregation of the LDS Church that is not large enough to form a ward; see Wikipedia article on ward in LDS church.
11. An area in business or of knowledge, research.
12. (nautical) A certificate given by Trinity House to a pilot qualified to take navigational control of a ship in British waters.
13. (computing) A sequence of code that is conditionally executed.
14. (computing) A group of related files in a source control system, including for example source code, build scripts, and media such as images.
15. (rail transport) A branch line.

Synonyms

• (part of a tree): bough, limb, tillow, twig; see also Thesaurus:tree

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

branch (third-person singular simple present branches, present participle branching, simple past and past participle branched)

1. (intransitive) To arise from the trunk or a larger branch of a tree.
2. (intransitive) To produce branches.
   • 1944, Emily Carr, The House of All Sorts, "Life Loves Living," [2]:

     The tree throve and branched so heavily that the windows of Lower West and the Doll's Flat were darkened.

3. (transitive, intransitive) To (cause to) divide into separate parts or subdivisions.
4. (intransitive, computing) To jump to a different location in a program, especially as the result of a conditional statement.
5. (transitive, colloquial) To discipline (a union member) at a branch meeting.
   • 2003, Paul Routledge, The Bumper Book of British Lefties (page 199)

     His staff were 'not journalists, but Communists', he maintained. Nonetheless, in 1948 his vigorous editorship took the paper's circulation to 120,000 a day. The following year, he was 'branched' by the National Union of Journalists for an intemperate attack on Fleet Street.

Related terms

• branch off
• branch out

Translations

References

Further reading

• branch on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• branch (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Haitian Creole

Etymology

From French branche (“branch”).

Noun

branch

1. branch

Middle English

Etymology 1

Noun

branch

1. Alternative form of braunche

Etymology 2

Verb

branch

1. Alternative form of braunchen