pinch n.
1. a certainty, something easily achieved [? SE pinch, the critical point].
![]() | Double-Dealer V iv: So, this was a pinch indeed. | |
![]() | Minor in Works (1799) I 252: This is doing business. This pinch is a sure card. | |
![]() | Forayers 173: They will fight at a pinch. | |
![]() | (con. 1840s–50s) London Labour and London Poor I 69/1: That’s the pinch, sir. | |
![]() | Sporting Times 5 Apr. 1/3: They tell him it’s a pinch, / And quite a racer, every inch. | ‘Comment is Superfluous’|
![]() | More Gal’s Gossip 83: Nanty! Don’t put it about, but it’s a pinch — Honeymoon! | |
![]() | Bruce Herald (N.Z.) 15 Mar. 7/5: I’d the biggest pinch wot ever wor known — a dead certainty . | |
![]() | Pitcher in Paradise 172: Aye, it’s a pinch for t’pair of ’em, y’r Graace. |
2. in Und. uses.
(a) a theft, esp. short-changing; an act of stealing or plagiarism; also in fig. use.
![]() | Thieving Detected 41: The Pinch or Truck. | |
![]() | View of Society II 78: The Pinch. This Rig is changing of money [...] Some of the practitioners are so amazingly clever, that in the change of half-a-guinea, or a guinea they will pinch one, two, or three shillings from you, without the least suspicion. | |
![]() | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn) n.p.: Pinchers. Rogues who, in changing money, by dexterity of hand frequently secrete two or three shillings out of the change of a guinea. This species of roguery is called the pinch, or pinching lay. | |
![]() | Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 258: pinch: [...] This game is a branch of shoplifting; but when the hoist is spoken of it commonly applies to stealing articles of a larger, though less valuable, kind, as pieces of muslin, or silk handkerchiefs, printed cotton, &c. | |
![]() | Sl. Dict. ‘On the trail.’ ‘But cant us the cues. What was the job?’ ‘A pinch for an emperor’s slang. We touched his leather too, but it was very lathy’ [F&H]. | |
![]() | Pink ’Un and Pelican 191: It was nothing less than a ‘blooming pinch’ for ‘Number Twenty-one’. | |
![]() | Marvel 21 Apr. 346: When did yer do yer last pinch? | |
![]() | Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 146: Pinch.– A small theft. | |
![]() | Don’t Get Me Wrong (1956) 108: This poison-gas formula pinch [...] is goin’ to be such a big-time schemozzle that he’d better keep outa it. | |
![]() | Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
![]() | Guardian Rev. 25 June 9: Ratner does this year’s most blatant Hitchcock pinch. |
(b) (orig. US) a police raid, an arrest.
![]() | Peveril of the Peak I 130: Never mind a warrant for a pinch, Master Bridgenorth [...] sure enough you have acted upon a worse yourself. | |
![]() | Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 42/1: In the event of a ‘stink’ a description would be given of us strangers, and finally a ‘pinch’. | |
![]() | Barkeep Stories ‘[D]dat’s de fourt’ pinch dat’s come off in de joint in two weeks’. | |
![]() | Confessions of a Detective 74: The pinch comes off; the copper runs in the rich thief, and then he and the lawyer shake him down between them for the bundle. | |
![]() | Amer. Mag. 77 June 31–5: The entire house was surrounded. We were trapped [...] I turned to my pal. ‘It’s the pinch, old boy,’ I said. | |
![]() | Hop-Heads 28: One of the men told of ‘the pinch’ of a peddler. | |
![]() | Sister of the Road (1975) 7: Police and pinches, jails, bughouses, and joints seem to have been always a part of my life. | |
![]() | Case of the Crooked Candle (1958) 92: The officer’s hand grasped her arm [...] ‘This is a pinch.’. | |
![]() | Crazy Kill 112: What’s this, a pinch? | |
![]() | Shake Him Till He Rattles (1964) 11: What is it? Can’t you stand a pinch? | |
![]() | Bandiet 32: ‘And you?’ ‘Oh, me. sabotage.’ [...] ‘Oh that’s bad, man, that’s a bad pinch, man.’. | |
![]() | Doing Time 106: ‘Listen, fellas, providing you don’t hit him too badly, there’s no pinch’. | |
![]() | Wiseguy (2001) 71: I’m going to have the distinction of getting Paul Vario’s favorite son his first pinch. | |
![]() | Leaving Bondi (2013) [ebook] ‘They’ve got me on a pretty heavy pinch’. | |
![]() | Joey Piss Pot 254: ‘Carneglia is a good pinch, and he’s already talking’. |
(c) (Aus.) a prison.
![]() | Fact’ry ’Ands 101: Ther Elder was back in er hour, ’n’ had me outer pinch ez quick ez could be. |
(d) (US) an arrested person.
![]() | Racket Act I: Did he see the pinch jump when he heard my name? |
(e) (US und.) an act of extortion; a demand for bribery; a pay-off.
![]() | Dly News (NY) 3 Mar. 6/2: Gang Slang. It looked like a pinch and the passing out of a buck or two; a pinch and a shake. | |
![]() | Blackstone Rangers 25: In any deal, any deal at all, the city had to get its cut and the local congressman took care he got his pinch too. |
3. (Aus.) an unspecified amount (not necessarily small).
![]() | ‘The Nig’ in Bulletin 14 Aug. 49/1: '[W]e’d reckoned on pickin’ up a pinch of change with the nig. |
4. in drug uses.
(a) a small amount of marijuana, enough for perhaps two cigarettes.
![]() | ‘Sl. of Watts’ in Current Sl. III:2. | |
![]() | Runnin’ Down Some Lines 170: A pinch (approximately one or two marijuana cigarettes). |
(b) a small amount of a narcotic drug.
![]() | Brother Ray 169: I might get high in the morning and then maybe take a little pinch [of heroin] before or after a gig at night. | |
![]() | Airtight Willie and Me 66: You gonna try to score for some of her Spic dope ain’t ya? [...] Lay a pinch on old Sparky if you do. |
In compounds
1. (Aus./US) a police station.
![]() | Fact’ry ’Ands 100: I was too t’ ther pinch box like a gentleman in me ’ansom. At ther lock-up [...] they searched me ’n’ put me by. |
2. (US) a police call-box.
![]() | Wash. Post 21 Jan. 2/8: Pinch-box – Police call box. |
In phrases
(US) to arrest, to have someone arrested.
![]() | Red Wind (1946) 106: I figured I’d hang a pinch on Atkinson somehow. | ‘Blackmailers Don’t Shoot’ in|
![]() | Little Sister 224: If he doesn’t hang a pinch on you. | |
![]() | Playback 91: Maybe he knows something that could hang a pinch on her. | |
![]() | Lovely Ladies 207: Why not let them get back to Dublin and then hang a pinch on the boy quietly like. |
to arrest.
![]() | Powers That Prey 81: Told me to tell you’t he’d have to make a pinch if you give the wheel another turn. | |
![]() | Enemy to Society 102: We made the pinches, all right. | |
![]() | Nightmare Town (2001) 243: ‘Getting anywhere?’ he wanted to know. ‘About ready to make a pinch.’. | ‘Tom, Dick, or Harry’ in|
![]() | Big Con 229: When a wrong copper makes a pinch [...] it usually sticks. | |
![]() | Monkey On My Back (1954) 239: I’ve been talking to Jim Galenford who was one of the cops who made the pinch. | |
![]() | Vice Trap 81: The heat that made the pinch must be going back to the booking office. | |
![]() | in Sweet Daddy 45: They [i.e. the vice squad] still got to make a pinch, keep their bosses happy. | |
![]() | Choirboys (1976) 19: Whoever made the pinch on the burglar in Seven-A One’s area deserves a good smoke! | |
![]() | From Bondage 340: Some cop ketch me panhandlin’, he’d get my ass throwed in the slammer just to make a pinch. |
1. (UK Und.) begging.
![]() | Western Times 9 Feb. 6/3: Margaret Healey charged [...] with begging [...] denied she ‘had ever been on the pinch before’. |
2. (UK Und.) working as a thief.
![]() | Sporting Sketches in Sportsman (Melbourne) (18/10/1898) 5/7: ‘It used ter be a simple bally treat [...] for ’ard-workin’ folk on the pinch’. |
1. (US) to reduce to poverty.
![]() | Really the Blues 302: Economic conditions put the pinch on me so hard. |
2. to arrest.
![]() | Billboard 20 Oct. 61/3: The police showed up in time to put the pinch on all concerned. | |
![]() | Jet 9 Nov. 44: They had put the pinch on taxicab owner Horace Wilson as a lottery suspect. | |
![]() | Pop. Mechanics Jan. 117/1: Although the Bureau doesn’t have a crew of cops it can send out to put the pinch on a swindler, the agency is not without teeth. |
3. to put pressure on.
![]() | Campus Sl. Mar. 5: put the pinch on – to put pressure on someone in some way. | |
![]() | Billboard 23 Aug. 45/5: Neighborhood conservatism has also put the pinch on several clubs. | |
![]() | Legacy 179: They’ve already got enough of that [i.e. money] to put the pinch on all of us, believe me. | |
![]() | Passage 151: Put the pinch on the snitches. Whatever you have to do, I want it done. I want to nail this son of a bitch. | |
![]() | Thumbs Down 338: I hear Win put the pinch on you for more money to keep the pressure on Workman. |
4. to solicit a loan.
![]() | New York Mag. 6 Nov. 36/2: This homeless guy approached me. I thought he was gonna put the pinch on me, but he asked me who won the fight . | |
![]() | Deep Bonds 77: No doubt this was a crack addict coming to put the pinch on her for some money. |
to be arrested.
![]() | You Can’t Win (2000) 141: Oakland is a tough town to take a pinch in. | |
![]() | Prison Days and Nights 23: Get a pinch when you haven’t got fall money [...] and where do you get off? | |
![]() | Street Corner Society (1955) 134: They just want to make a pinch. Even if we pay them off, we have to take the pinches too. | |
![]() | Helfand Report 20: He says, I can't help it, I got to take you. I got to take you or get me a stiff [...] Listen to me, everybody is going to take a pinch. | |
![]() | Urbanism, Urbanization, and Change 319: In such cases the bookmaker learns that he is to be raided and that someone will have to ‘take a pinch’ (be arrested). | |
![]() | Cogan’s Trade (1975) 135: He didn’t take a pinch for about thirty years. | |
![]() | Wiseguy (2001) 101: She knew I had taken the pinch. |
SE in slang uses
In phrases
see separate entry.