Verb. (thieves').—1. To steal: formerly, encroach little by little; to appropriate. The pinch (or pinching lay) = (1) pilfering while purchasing, (2) exchanging bad money for good: ringing the changes (q.v.). hence pincher (or pinch-gloak) = a shop-lifter. also, to pinch on the parson's side = 'to sharp him of his tithes'; and pinched to the bone = robbed of all.—B. E. (c.1696); Grose (1785); Vaux (1819).
1362. Langland, Piers Plowman [Wright, vii. 267]. Yf ich zede to the plouh ich pynchede on hus half-acre.
1712. Shirley, The Black Procession, ii. To pinch all the lurry he thinks it no sin.
1749. Smollett, Gil Blas [Routledge], 378. The old codger will be pinched to the bone and left penniless.
1842. Egan, Captain Macheath (Song, 'Miss Dolly Trull.') She runs such precious cranky rigs With pinching wedge and lockets.
1859. A Hundred Stretches Hence [Farmer, Musa Pedestris (1896), 159]. And where the swag so bleakly pinched?
1886-96, Marshall, 'Pomes' from the Pink 'Un ['The Luxury of Doing Good'], 41. He charged the barmaid's mash with the pinching of the cash.
1898. Pink 'Un and Pelican, 227. He was convinced, from the instant he discovered his boodle was gone, that it had been pinched.
2. (thieves').—To arrest.
c.1600-62. Common Cries of London [Collier, Roxburghe Ballads (1847), 213]. And some there be . . . That pinch the countryman With nimming of a fee.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Lab., iii. 397. He got acquitted for that there note after he had me pinched.
1886-96. Marshall, 'Pomes,' 72. And she was pinched for loitering with felonious intent.
1887. Henley, Villon's Good Night, iii. For you, you copper's-narks, and dubs, Who pinched me when upon the Snam.
1900. Sims, London's Heart, 284. Her husband had been pinched, and these were his pals who were going to try . . . to get a lawyer to defend him.
3. (old).— 'To cut the Measures of Ale, Beer,' &c.— B. E. (c.1696).
To pinch at, verb. phr. (old).—To demur; to fault-find.
1383. Chaucer, Manciples' Tale, Prol. He speke wol of smale thynges As for to pynchen at thy rekenynges, That were not honeste, if it came to pruf.
See Nab, Nick, and Shoe.
Pinchbeck, adj. (common).—Showy;
meretricious; sham. [In
the 18th century Christopher
Pinchbeck, a London watchmaker,
invented an amalgam
much used in cheap jewellery.]
1782. Walpole, Letters, viii. 310. The highwayman . . . insisted on more. The poor girl, terrified, gave him not only her own pinchbeck watch, but her grandmother's gold one.
1886. West. Rev., Oct., 795. Most of these men were of the school of Molyneux, and theirs was pinchbeck patriotism.
1901. Punch, 25 Dec, 452, 1. The Irish Party, under the leadership of a pinchbeck Parnell, have given themselves away.
Pinch-belly (-back, -commons,
-fist, -guts, -penny, or -pincher),
subs. phr. (old).—A miser;
a niggard in food, dress, or money:
see Skinflint.
1412. Occleve, De. Reg. Princip. [Oliphant, New English, i. 210]. He [Occleve] uses many phrases seldom repeated before Barclay's time, a hundred years later, such as . . . shepes skyn (parchment) . . . pynchepeny (niggard).
1440. Prompt. Parv. s.v. Cupidinarius . . . pykepeny . . . pincher.
1579. Lyly, Euphues, 'Anat. of Wit', p. 109. They accompt one . . . a pynch penny if he be not prodygall.
1593. Hollyband, Dict., s.v. Chiche . . . Pinchpenny.
