different between pinion vs string

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

Etymology

From Middle English string, streng, strynge, from Old English streng (“string, cord, rope; tackle, rigging; ligament, ligature, sinew; line, lineage”), from Proto-Germanic *strangiz (“string”), from Proto-Indo-European *streng?- (“rope, cord, strand; to tighten”). Cognate with Scots string (“string”), Dutch streng (“cord, strand”), Low German strenge (“strand, cord, rope”), German Strang (“strand, cord, rope”), Danish streng (“string”), Swedish sträng (“string, cord, wire”), Icelandic strengur (“string”), Latvian stringt (“to be tight, wither”), Latin string? (“I tighten”), Ancient Greek ????????????? (strangalóomai, “to strangle”), from ????????? (strangál?, “halter”), Ancient Greek ???????? (strangós, “tied together, entangled, twisted”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st???/
• Hyphenation: string
• Rhymes: -??

Noun

string (countable and uncountable, plural strings)

1. (countable) A long, thin and flexible structure made from threads twisted together.

   Synonyms: cord, rope, line; see also Thesaurus:string

   • 1700, Matthew Prior, Carmen Seculare. for the Year 1700

     Round Ormond's knee thou tiest the mystic string.

2. (uncountable) Such a structure considered as a substance.

   Synonyms: cord, rope, twine

3. (countable) Any similar long, thin and flexible object.
   1. (music) A length of wire or other material used as vibrating element on a musical instrument.

   2. (sports) A length of nylon or other material on the head of a racquet.
4. A thread or cord on which a number of objects or parts are strung or arranged in close and orderly succession; hence, a line or series of things arranged on a thread, or as if so arranged.

   • a string of islands

5. (countable) A cohesive substance taking the form of a string.

6. (countable) A series of items or events.

   Synonyms: sequence, series

   • 2012, Christoper Zara, Tortured Artists: From Picasso and Monroe to Warhol and Winehouse, the Twisted Secrets of the World's Most Creative Minds, part 1, chapter 1, 27:

     In 1933, disgusted and discouraged after a string of commercial failures, Clara quit the film business forever. She was twenty-six.

7. (countable) The members of a sports team or squad regarded as most likely to achieve success. (Perhaps metaphorical as the "strings" that hold the squad together.) Often first string, second string etc.
8. (countable) In various games and competitions, a certain number of turns at play, of rounds, etc.
9. (collective) A drove of horses, or a group of racehorses kept by one owner or at one stable.
10. (countable, programming) An ordered sequence of text characters stored consecutively in memory and capable of being processed as a single entity.
11. (music, metonymically, countable) A stringed instrument.
12. (music, usually in the plural) The stringed instruments as a section of an orchestra, especially those played by a bow, or the persons playing those instruments.

    Synonym: string section

13. (figuratively, in the plural) The conditions and limitations in a contract collectively.

    Synonyms: conditions, provisions

14. (countable, physics) The main object of study in string theory, a branch of theoretical physics.
15. (slang) Cannabis or marijuana.
16. (billiards) Part of the game of billiards, where the order of the play is determined by testing who can get a ball closest to the bottom rail by shooting it onto the end rail.
17. (historical, billiards) The buttons strung on a wire by which the score is kept.
18. (billiards, by extension) The points made in a game of billiards.
19. (billiards, pool) The line from behind and over which the cue ball must be played after being out of play, as by being pocketed or knocked off the table; also called the string line.
20. A strip, as of leather, by which the covers of a book are held together.

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

21. (archaic) A fibre, as of a plant; a little fibrous root.
22. (archaic) A nerve or tendon of an animal body.

    • The string of his tongue was loosed.

23. (shipbuilding) An inside range of ceiling planks, corresponding to the sheer strake on the outside and bolted to it.
24. (botany) The tough fibrous substance that unites the valves of the pericarp of leguminous plants.

25. (mining) A small, filamentous ramification of a metallic vein.

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

26. (architecture) A stringcourse.
27. (dated, slang) A hoax; a fake story.
28. Synonym of stable (“group of prostitutes managed by one pimp”)
    • 2006, Steve Niles, Jeff Mariotte, 30 Days of Night: Rumors of the Undead (page 307)

      They were turning tricks, doing drugs, and generally little better off than they had been before, except that they were keeping more of their money. But they seemed lonely, too, without the company of their pimp and the rest of his string.

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

• Portuguese: estrém

Translations

Verb

string (third-person singular simple present strings, present participle stringing, simple past strung or (obsolete or nonstandard) strang, past participle strung)

1. (transitive) To put (items) on a string.

2. (transitive) To put strings on (something).

3. (intransitive) To form into a string or strings, as a substance which is stretched, or people who are moving along, etc.
4. (intransitive, billiards) To drive the ball against the end of the table and back, in order to determine which player is to open the game.
5. (birdwatching) To deliberately state that a certain bird is present when it is not; to knowingly mislead other birders about the occurrence of a bird, especially a rarity; to misidentify a common bird as a rare species.

Synonyms

• (put on a string): thread
• (put strings on): lace

Derived terms

• stringer
• stringified
• stringifier
• stringify

Related terms

• string along
• string up
• string out

Translations

Further reading

• string on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• String in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English string.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /str??/
• Hyphenation: string
• Rhymes: -??

Noun

string m (plural strings, diminutive stringetje n)

1. (clothing) G-string, thong
2. (computing) character string

Synonyms

• (character string): tekenreeks
• (G-string): reetveter

French

Etymology

From English string.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /st?i?/

Noun

string m (plural strings)

1. G-string, thong, tanga

Portuguese

Etymology

Borrowed from English string.

Pronunciation

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /es?t???(i)/, /es?t???(i)/

Noun

string m (plural strings)

1. (computing) string (sequence of consecutive text characters)

   Synonyms: cadeia, cadeia de caracteres

Swedish

Etymology

From English string.

Noun

string c

1. G-string, thong

Derived terms

• stringkalsong
• stringtrosa

Anagrams

• ringts

Tok Pisin

Etymology

From English string.

Noun

string

1. string; cord