different between scintilla vs pinch

English

Etymology

Existing in English since the 17th century; borrowed from Latin scintilla (“spark”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /s?n?t?l?/
• Rhymes: -?l?

Noun

scintilla (plural scintillae or scintillas)

1. A small spark or flash.
   • 1890, Philosophical Magazine, page 364,

     If the action of the electrodynamic waves is so violent that, even without artificial electrification of the secondary conductor, scintillæ occur in its spark-gap, the aluminium leaves remain almost without change.

2. (figuratively) A small or trace amount.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:modicum

   • 1876 February, John Tyndall, The Controversy on Acoustical Research, Popular Science Monthly,

     And, if I except the sagacious remark of General Duane which has been so curtly brushed aside, not a scintilla of light has been cast upon these causes by any researches ever published by the Lighthouse Board of Washington.

   • 1878 April, John Tyndall, Illustrations of the Logic of Science IV, Popular Science Monthly,

     Now, it may be we have no scintilla of proof to the contrary, but reason is unnecessary in reference to that belief which is of all the most settled, which nobody doubts or can doubt, and which he who should deny would stultify himself in so doing.

   • 1990, William J. Brennan, Jr., Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health: Dissent Brennan, United States Supreme Court,

     Current medical practice recommends use of heroic measures if there is a scintilla of a chance that the patient will recover, on the assumption that the measures will be discontinued should the patient improve.

Related terms

• scintilla juris
• scintillate
• scintillation
• scintillator
• shine
• stencil
• tinsel

Translations

Further reading

• “scintilla”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “scintilla”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

References

Anagrams

• Scillitan

French

Verb

scintilla

1. third-person singular past historic of scintiller

Italian

Etymology

From Latin scintilla.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?in?til.la/

Noun

scintilla f (plural scintille)

1. spark

Verb

scintilla

1. third-person singular present of scintillare
2. second-person singular imperative of scintillare

Further reading

• scintilla in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Latin

Etymology

Most likely from Proto-Indo-European *ski-nto-, from *skey-, *ski- (“to gleam, shine”), which is the source of English shine.

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /skin?til.la/, [s?k?n??t??l??ä]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /?in?til.la/, [?in??t?il??]

Noun

scintilla f (genitive scintillae); first declension

1. spark
   • Quintus Curtius Rufus, Historiarum Alexandri Magni Macedonis Libri Qui Supersunt; Book VI, Chapter III

     Parva saepe scintilla contempta magnum excitavit incendium.

     A small spark neglected has often roused to a great inferno.

2. glimmer

Declension

First-declension noun.

Derived terms

• scintill?

Descendants

• ? Vulgar Latin: *scintilia
  • ? Albanian: shkëndijë
  • Aromanian: scãntealji
  • Romanian: scânteie
• ? Vulgar Latin: *stincilla
  • Old French: estancele
    • Middle French: estincelle
      • ? English: tinsel
      • French: étincelle
• ? English: scintilla
• ? Italian: scintilla
• Old Leonese:
  • Asturian: centella
• Old Occitan:
  • Catalan: centella
• Old Portuguese: centella
  • Portuguese: centelha
• Old Spanish:
  • Spanish: centella
• Sardinian: schinchidha, scincidha
• Venetian: s-ciantixo, sciantizha, sinti?a

References

• scintilla in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• scintilla in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• scintilla in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)

English

Etymology

From Middle English pinchen, from Old French *pinchier, pincer (“to pinch”), from Vulgar Latin *pinci?re (“to puncture, pinch”), from possible merger of *puncti?re (“a puncture, sting”), from Latin puncti? (“a puncture, prick”) and *picc?re (“to strike, sting”), from Frankish *pikk?n, from Proto-Germanic *pikk?n? (“to pick, peck, prick”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?nt?/
• Rhymes: -?nt?

Verb

pinch (third-person singular simple present pinches, present participle pinching, simple past and past participle pinched)

1. To squeeze a small amount of a person's skin and flesh, making it hurt.

   The children were scolded for pinching each other.

   This shoe pinches my foot.

2. To squeeze between the thumb and forefinger.
3. To squeeze between two objects.
4. (slang, transitive) To steal, usually something inconsequential.

   Someone has pinched my handkerchief!
5. (slang, transitive) To arrest or capture.
6. (horticulture) To cut shoots or buds of a plant in order to shape the plant, or to improve its yield.
7. (nautical) To sail so close-hauled that the sails begin to flutter.
8. (hunting) To take hold; to grip, as a dog does.
9. (obsolete, intransitive) To be stingy or covetous; to live sparingly.

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

   • 1788, Benjamin Franklin (attributed), Paper

     the wretch whom avarice bids to pinch and spare

10. To seize; to grip; to bite; said of animals.
11. (figuratively) To cramp; to straiten; to oppress; to starve.

    to be pinched for money

    • c. 1610?, Walter Raleigh, A Discourse of War

      want of room […] which pincheth the whole nation

    • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture 2:

      The Christian also spurns the pinched and mumping sick-room attitude, and the lives of saints are full of a kind of callousness to diseased conditions of body which probably no other human records show.

12. To move, as a railroad car, by prying the wheels with a pinch.
13. (obsolete) To complain or find fault.
    • 1809, Alexander Chalmers ed. The Works of the English Poets, from Cahucer to Cowper, Vol. 1, modern rendering of poem imputed to Geoffrey Chaucer, "A Ballad which Chaucer made in Praise or rather Dispraise of Women for their Doubleness":

      Therefore who so them accuse

      Of any double entencion,

      To speake, rowne, other to muse,

      To pinch at their condicion,

      All is but false collusion,

      I dare rightwell the sothe express,

      They have no better protection,

      But shrowd them vnder doubleness.

Derived terms

• pinch off
• pinch out
• pinch a loaf

Translations

Noun

pinch (plural pinches)

1. The action of squeezing a small amount of a person's skin and flesh, making it hurt.
2. A close compression of anything with the fingers.

   I gave the leather of the sofa a pinch, gauging the texture.

3. A small amount of powder or granules, such that the amount could be held between fingertip and thumb tip.
4. An awkward situation of some kind (especially money or social) which is difficult to escape.
   • 1955, Rex Stout, "Die Like a Dog", in Three Witnesses, October 1994 Bantam edition, ?ISBN, page 171:

     It took nerve and muscle both to carry the body out and down the stairs to the lower hall, but he damn well had to get it out of his place and away from his door, and any of those four could have done it in a pinch, and it sure was a pinch.

5. A metal bar used as a lever for lifting weights, rolling wheels, etc.
6. An organic herbal smoke additive.
7. (physics) A magnetic compression of an electrically-conducting filament.
8. The narrow part connecting the two bulbs of an hourglass.
   • 2001, Terry Pratchett: Thief of Time:

     It looked like an hourglass, but all those little glittering shapes tumbling through the pinch were seconds.

9. (slang) An arrest.

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Japanese: ??? (pinchi)

Translations