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Definition 2024
pin_money
pin money
See also: pin-money
English
Alternative forms
Noun
- (now historical) An allowance of money given by a man to his wife or to other dependents for their personal, discretionary use. [from 16th c.]
- 1723, Charles Walker, Memoirs of Sally Salisbury, VI:
- Damn you for a Son of a Bitch! Shall you wear such Things, and I want Pin-Mooney?
- 1813, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, ch. 59:
- Lord bless me! only think! dear me! Mr. Darcy! . . . Oh! my sweetest Lizzy! how rich and how great you will be! What pin-money, what jewels, what carriages you will have!
- 1886, George Gissing, Demos: A Story of English Socialism, ch. 27:
- [H]e practised economy in the matter of his wife's pin-money.
- 1911, David Graham Phillips, The Conflict, ch. 7:
- But these sums were but a small part of their income, were merely pin money for their wives and children.
- 1921, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, Castles in the Air, ch. 3:
- Certain it is that out of the lavish pin-money which her father gave her as a free gift from time to time, she only doled out a meagre allowance to her husband.
- 1723, Charles Walker, Memoirs of Sally Salisbury, VI:
- (idiomatic, dated) A relatively small sum of cash kept in one's personal possession, for routine expenses or incidental purchases; an amount of money which is not particularly significant. [from 18th c.]
- 1892, Mark Twain, The American Claimant, ch. 3:
- "Money—yes; pin money: a couple of hundred thousand, perhaps. Not more."
- Washington's eyes blazed.
- "A couple of hundred thousand dollars! do you call that pin money?"
- 1912, O. Henry, "A Ruler of Men" in Rolling Stones:
- "Where is Reddy McGill now?" . . .
- "Putting up windmills in Arizona. For pin money to buy etceteras with."
- 1917, Christopher Morley, Parnassus on Wheels, ch. 3:
- "[T]he housekeeping accounts fall to me. I make a fairish amount of pin money on my poultry and some of my preserves that I send to Boston."
- 1892, Mark Twain, The American Claimant, ch. 3:
Synonyms
References
- pin money at OneLook Dictionary Search