As neat as a new pin - This idiom means tidy and clean.
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Hear a pin drop - If there is complete silence in a room, you can hear a pin drop.
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Knock the pins from under someone - If someone knocks the pins from under you, they let you down.
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On pins and needles - If you are on pins and needles, you are very worried about something.
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Pin down with a label - If you pin someone down with a label, you characterise them, often meant negatively as the label is restrictive.
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Pin money - (UK) If you work for pin money, you work not because you need to but because it gives you money for extra little luxuries and treats.
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In literature:
She therefore took all the pins from their clothes, sewing them with thread instead of pinning them.
"Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" by Charles Mackay
He pinned the letter inside his shirt.
"The Rich Little Poor Boy" by Eleanor Gates
First you pin the goods lengthwise, pins close together.
"Working With the Working Woman" by Cornelia Stratton Parker
Her house is as clean as a pin, and her yard is the same.
"Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4" by Work Projects Administration
Look at that millikin pin, boys!
"The Boy Tar" by Mayne Reid
Bertha Warner, a merry-looking girl of about Patty's age, came flying downstairs, pinning her collar as she ran.
"Patty's Summer Days" by Carolyn Wells
Pen has tried to run pins into me sometimes to make me tell.
"Girls of the Forest" by L. T. Meade
As for myself, for the preservation of birds, I pin my faith to formula No.
"Practical Taxidermy" by Montagu Browne
Gie him a hole, and he'll find a pin.
"The Proverbs of Scotland" by Alexander Hislop
The beautiful shining pin was gone!
"Three Little Cousins" by Amy E. Blanchard
She pinned an old plaid shawl around the Rich Man's waist!
"Fairy Prince and Other Stories" by Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
The character of the two nations may thus be clearly traced in so insignificant an article as a breast-pin.
"Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places" by Frederick William Fairholt
Each corner pin should be directly in rear of the corresponding front corner pin, making a rectangle.
"Manual of Military Training" by James A. Moss
It was pinned down in front with an odd pin.
"Hester's Counterpart" by Jean K. Baird
Aunt Amanda stuck a pin in the goods in her lap and folded her hands.
"The Old Tobacco Shop" by William Bowen
On the ground, close to my bed, were three brass-headed carpet pins which had apparently spilt accidentally out of a box.
"The Stretton Street Affair" by William Le Queux
No, it could not be this, because it appeared to be round, and bigger than a pin stone could be.
"The Universal Reciter" by Various
When I try to pin it to one thing, there's nothing to put a pin in.
"Rim o' the World" by B. M. Bower
The moon had dwindled to a pin-point of light beside the crescent earth.
"Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930" by Various
Pin, or tie with thread, the toes to grasp the perch.
"Taxidermy" by Leon Luther Pray
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In poetry:
"There's one that standeth at the door,
And tirleth at the pin:
Now speak and say, my popinjay,
If I sall let him in."
"The Lang Coortin'" by Lewis Carroll
There was a Young Lady whose chin,
Resembled the point of a pin;
So she had it made sharp,
And purchased a harp,
And played several tunes with her chin.
"Limerick: There was a Young Lady whose chin" by Edward Lear
He told a Tale of bitter woe,
His heart with pity swelling,
How the fair LADY pin'd and died,
And how her Ghost, at Christmas-tide—
Would wander,—near her dwelling.
"Golfre, Gothic Swiss Tale" by Mary Darby Robinson
Greatness is goodness, else not worth a pin;
Mere talent's greatness stirs no chord within,
But, like keen razor plied the surface o'er,
Acts simply on the surface, and no more.
"Pretence. Part I - Table-Talk" by John Kenyon
AS near a weeping spring reclin'd
The beauteous ARAMINTA pin'd,
And mourn'd a false ungrateful youth;
While dying echoes caught the sound,
And spread the soft complaints around
Of broken vows and alter'd truth;
"Songs" by Anna Laetitia Aikin Barbauld
'Twas a youth o'er the form of a statue inclin'd,
And the sculptor he seem'd of the stone;
Yet he languished as tho' for its beauty he pin'd
And gaz'd as the eyes of the statue so blind
Reflected the beams of his own.
"The Paint-Kings" by Washington Allston
In news:
Here's the skinny: actress Mariska Hargitay doesn't feel pressure to be pin thin.
Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (???
For all the hopes NASA has pinned on the rover it deposited on Mars last month, one wish has gone unspoken: Please don't find water.
The clips securely pin the end flaps of a cardboard box to its respective side.
But jeer as he may, Lopez cannot pin the state's shortcomings and looming downfall on anyone but the.
Spring-loaded pins make die changing fast and simple.
Mix then refrigerate for the few minutes it takes for you to find your cookie sheet, cut-out shapes, rolling pin and to clean a countertop on which to roll dough.
ArtPrize's push-pin 'Portraits' by Eric Daigh featured on CBS Sunday Morning.
The wreath will hang directly on any nail, or you can make an additional loop , pinning it to the wreath, and hang it by the loop .
Run a stick pin through each loop , and push the pin all the way into the Styrofoam circle.
Even in calm political times they are hard to pin down.
Upon entering the app, users are met by a map view with pins representing nearby accounts.
The medieval question used to be, How many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Marti Malloy of the United States, pins Giula Quintavalle of Italy, during their bronze medal match on Monday.
World middleweight champion Sergio Martinez would like a shot at Floyd Mayweather but said on Monday he would not lose sleep trying to pin down the elusive American.
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In science:
The exact value of the exponent α is difficult to pin point from the MC results, due to strong corrections to scaling.
Anomalous Roughness, Localization, and Globally Constrained Random Walks
We study thermally activated dynamics using functional renormalization within the field theory of randomly pinned elastic systems, a prototype for glasses.
Field theory of statics and dynamics of glasses: rare events and barrier distributions
This follows since Eq. (2) becomes linear for zero pinning force f = 0, hence the distribution of η(r) is scale-independent.
Field theory of statics and dynamics of glasses: rare events and barrier distributions
We would like to explicitly see the action of S pin(2n) on this model for S .
Quantum Field Theory and Representation Theory: A Sketch
The action of the subgroup ]U (n) of S pin(2n) is the easiest to understand since it leaves ΩJ invariant (up to a phase).
Quantum Field Theory and Representation Theory: A Sketch
To see this and to see how elements of S pin(2n) not in ]U (n) act we need to explicitly represent S pin(2n) in terms of the Clifford algebra.
Quantum Field Theory and Representation Theory: A Sketch
The group S pin(2n) can be realized in terms of even, invertible elements g of the Clifford algebra.
Quantum Field Theory and Representation Theory: A Sketch
This theorem was motivated by consideration of the case G = F4 , H = S pin(9), but the simplest non-complex case is that of G/H an even-dimensional sphere (G = S pin(2n + 1), H = S pin(2n)).
Quantum Field Theory and Representation Theory: A Sketch
It turns out that RS pin(2n) is a free RS pin(2n + 1) module with two generators which can be taken to be 1 and S + .
Quantum Field Theory and Representation Theory: A Sketch
This construction is generalized in to an equivariant one for the group G, where G is some subgroup of S pin(2n).
Quantum Field Theory and Representation Theory: A Sketch
This classical definition of a G-structure is not general enough to deal even with the spinor geometry of M since one needs to consider a structure group S pin(n) or S pinc (n) at each point and these are not subgroups of GL(n, R).
Quantum Field Theory and Representation Theory: A Sketch
This is reflected topologically in the Bott periodicity of homotopy groups of Lie groups: for large enough n, πi (S pin(n)) = πi+8 (S pin(n)).
Quantum Field Theory and Representation Theory: A Sketch
Now recall our construction of the spin representation for S pin(2n) as Λ∗ (Cn ) applied to a “vacuum” vector.
Quantum Field Theory and Representation Theory: A Sketch
The model was motivated by flux–line pinning in superconductors.
Random matrix theory and symmetric spaces
We begin in the next section by discussing the pinning effect alone mainly in the difficult two-dimensional case.
Localization-delocalization phenomena for random interfaces
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