Pin

n. [D. pin and pen, Ger. & Sw. pinne, Icel. pinni, Dan. pind, W. pin, Gael. pinne, Ir. pinne, pion, Pg. pino, Lat. pinna, a pinnacle.]

1. A pointed piece of wood, metal, or the like, used to bind separate articles together, or as a support by which one article may be suspended from another; a peg; a bolt.
2. Especially, a small, pointed piece of brass wire, with a head, much used as a cheap and ready instrument for fastening clothes, or attaching papers.

About that time Englishmen began to make all sorts of pins. Stow. 3. Hence, a thing of trifling value; a trifle. He told her . . . he would show all the world he did not care a pin for her. Spectator.

4. That which resembles a pin in its form or use; as, (a.) A peg used in musical instruments in straining and relaxing the strings. (b.) A linchpin. (c.) (Mach.) A short shaft, sometimes forming a bolt, a part of which serves as a journal. [See A, in Illust. of Knuckle-joint.]
5. The eye or center of a target, which the marksman aims to pierce with his arrow. Shaks.

For kings are clouts that every man shoots at; Our crown the pin that thousands seek to cleave. Marlow.

6. (Med.) An obscurity of vision dependent upon a speck in the cornea; also, the speck itself; web.
7. A noxious humor in a hawk’s foot. Ainsworth.
8. A note or strain. [Obs. and low.] L’Estrange.