FluentPlex

pinch

/pɪnt͡ʃ/ noun C2
  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. · Mix about four cups of white flour with a pinch of salt.
  4. An awkward situation of some kind (especially money or social) which is difficult to escape.
  5. A metal bar used as a lever for lifting weights, rolling wheels, etc.
  6. An organic herbal smoke additive.
  7. A magnetic compression of an electrically conducting filament.
  8. The narrow part connecting the two bulbs of an hourglass.

Plural pinches

+ Save to review

From the library

Then I’d pinch myself to see if it was real--until suddenly I remembered that even supposing it was only a dream I’d better go on dreaming as long as I could; so I stopped pinching.
Anne of Green Gables, p. 28 · C1
I could imagine his giving a friend a little pinch of the latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of malevolence, you understand, but simply out of a spirit of inquiry in order to have an accurate idea of the effects.
A Study in Scarlet, p. 5 · B2
That’s the pinch.
Sherlock Holmes: The Bruce-Partington Plans, p. 8 · B2
Pinch him!
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, p. 89 · B2

Other matches

Learn pinch in real texts

With a free account, hover any word in the library for its meaning, hear it read aloud, save words for review timed to your memory, and see how much of each book you already know.

Create free account
Words, meanings, pronunciations and translations from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); how common each word is from wordfreq. Made into this dictionary by FluentPlex.