DICT.TW Dictionary Taiwan
Pinch v. t. [imp. & p. p. Pinched p. pr. & vb. n. Pinching.]
1. To press hard or squeeze between the ends of the fingers, between teeth or claws, or between the jaws of an instrument; to squeeze or compress, as between any two hard bodies.
2. to seize; to grip; to bite; -- said of animals. [Obs.]
He [the hound] pinched and pulled her down. --Chapman.
3. To plait. [Obs.]
Full seemly her wimple ipinched was. --Chaucer.
4. Figuratively: To cramp; to straiten; to oppress; to starve; to distress; as, to be pinched for money.
Want of room . . . pinching a whole nation. --Sir W. Raleigh.
5. To move, as a railroad car, by prying the wheels with a pinch. See Pinch, n., 4.
6. To seize by way of theft; to steal; to lift. [Slang]
7. to catch; to arrest (a criminal).
pinched
adj 1: sounding as if the nose were pinched; "a whining nasal
voice" [syn: adenoidal, nasal]
2: very thin especially from disease or hunger or cold;
"emaciated bony hands"; "a nightmare population of gaunt
men and skeletal boys"; "eyes were haggard and cavernous";
"small pinched faces"; "kept life in his wasted frame only
by grim concentration" [syn: bony, cadaverous, emaciated,
gaunt, haggard, skeletal, wasted]
3: not having enough money to pay for necessities [syn: hard
up, impecunious, in straitened circumstances(p), penniless,
penurious]
4: as if squeezed uncomfortably tight; "her pinched toes in her
pointed shoes were killing her"