PINCHED

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does pinched mean? 

• PINCHED (adjective)
  The adjective PINCHED has 4 senses:

1. sounding as if the nose were pinched

2. very thin especially from disease or hunger or cold

3. not having enough money to pay for necessities

4. as if squeezed uncomfortably tight

  Familiarity information: PINCHED used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PINCHED (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Sounding as if the nose were pinched

Synonyms:

adenoidal; nasal; pinched

Context example:

a whining nasal voice

Similar:

high; high-pitched (used of sounds and voices; high in pitch or frequency)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Very thin especially from disease or hunger or cold

Synonyms:

cadaverous; emaciated; gaunt; haggard; pinched; skeletal; wasted

Context example:

kept life in his wasted frame only by grim concentration

Similar:

lean; thin (lacking excess flesh)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Not having enough money to pay for necessities

Synonyms:

hard up; impecunious; in straitened circumstances; penniless; penurious; pinched

Similar:

poor (having little money or few possessions)

Sense 4

Meaning:

As if squeezed uncomfortably tight

Context example:

her pinched toes in her pointed shoes were killing her

Similar:

constricted (drawn together or squeezed physically or by extension psychologically)

 Context examples 

And with that he winked and pinched me hard.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The door opened with difficulty, and the boy pinched his fingers.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Such caveolae may be pinched off to form free vesicles within the cytoplasm.

(Caveola, NCI Thesaurus)

Sometimes this malfunction is due to a health problem, such as a spinal cord injury or a pinched nerve in the neck or back.

(Muscle Cramps, NIH)

I pinched my arms and sides to awake myself, hoping I might be in a dream.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I felt, all this while, as if my ear were blazing; he pinched it so hard.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I was shocked by the change which had come over him, for his face which was naturally of a broad and massive mould, was now pinched and fallen in, while his hair seemed to me at least a shade whiter.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I feared to wake her all at once, so, in order to have my hands free that I might help her, I fastened the shawl at her throat with a big safety-pin; but I must have been clumsy in my anxiety and pinched or pricked her with it, for by-and-by, when her breathing became quieter, she put her hand to her throat again and moaned.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

She read the short reports he sent more than she did your letters, and pinched me when I spoke of it, and likes brown eyes, and doesn't think John an ugly name, and she'll go and fall in love, and there's an end of peace and fun, and cozy times together.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

On occasion, in a casual sort of way, when she thought hunger pinched hardest, she would send him in a loaf of new baking, awkwardly covering the act with banter to the effect that it was better than he could bake.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)