stick a pin there
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.15 in modern English
25
Scrabble Score
14
Letters
2
Syllables
11
Unique Chars
Meaning
phrase
Example Sentences
- "Better and better; and yet p. 30. he tells us; Long and ſad Experience proved that All the Means be uſed to reform the World, proved ineffectual: So Good that he deſigns, and deſires the Happinevs of all his Creatures, according to the Capacity of Their Natures, Stick a Pin there."
- "For instance, when a common person would say Stop, a military man would say Halt, a sailor Avast, a plough-jogger Whoh or Hush, and a quoter of poetry, "Stick a pin there." But enough of this."
- "I know the men and have seen the gold, and know what they state to be a fact; so stick a pin there."
- "But to call Dr. York an orator, this rantor, with — to use one of his favorite adjectives — his 'wangbang' style, shouting, stamping, sawing the air, and capering like a mountebank, I say to call him an orator, is a perversion of the word. Stick a pin there."
- "The first song of the katydid heard in this city this summer was rendered on Monday evening, August 6. Stick a pin there."
- "Stick a pin there. History has it that Nero fiddled while Rome burned: Mr. Eggleston smiled while the class war raged! First, let us remind this teacher of men that there is only one working class in every country, and Australia is not the exception."
Etymology
As with the similar phrase put a pin in, popular modern theories suggesting origin in 20thC military use (re-inserting the safety pin into a hand grenade) or using thumbtacks to attach notices to a corkboard, are chronologically impossible. Physical evidence from 18thC books suggests the phrase may derive from the practice of readers inserting sewing pins into the fold near a book's spine to mark a specific passage or page.