pin
/pɪn/
"pin" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“pin” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #4,475) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #4,475
- frequency rank, English
- 4,417
- “P” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A needle without an eye (usually) made of drawn-out steel wire with one end sharpened and the other flattened or rounded into a head, used for fastening.
Corpus desk
Index EN-pin · pin · English
pin · rank #4,475 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #4,475
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,417
- PHOTO-FINISH photographer
Nearest frequency peer: photographer (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbours of confusable “pin”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- peaceful
peaceful
95,529 corpus weight
- Philip
Philip
95,528 corpus weight
- photographer
photographer
95,527 corpus weight
- pin
pin
95,526 corpus weight
- prevention
prevention
95,525 corpus weight
- printing
printing
95,524 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “pin” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | pin |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /pɪn/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #4,475 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “pin”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for pin is neighbouring look-alikes ("PM", "PP", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /pɪn/. Frequency #4,475 among 4,417 “P” headwords. 24 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for pin, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "PM", "PP", "PR", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English pinne, from Old English pinn (“pin, peg, bolt”), from Proto-Germanic *pinnaz, *pinnō, *pint- (“protruding point, peak, peg, pin, nail”), from Proto-Indo-European *bend- (“protruding object, pointed peg, nail, edge”). Related to pen (“enc… The correct English form is pin, spelled P-I-N.
Definition
- 1A needle without an eye (usually) made of drawn-out steel wire with one end sharpened and the other flattened or rounded into a head, used for fastening.
- 2A small nail with a head and a sharp point.
- 3A cylinder often of wood or metal used to fasten or as a bearing between two parts.
- 4The victory condition of holding the opponent's shoulders on the wrestling mat for a prescribed period of time.
- 5A slender object specially designed for use in a specific game or sport, such as skittles or bowling.
- 6A leg.
- 7Any of the individual connecting elements of a multipole electrical connector.
- 8A piece of jewellery that is attached to clothing with a pin.
- 9A simple accessory that can be attached to clothing with a pin or fastener, often round and bearing a design, logo or message, and used for decoration, identification or to show political affiliation, etc.
- 10Either a scenario in which moving a lesser piece to escape from attack would expose a more valuable piece to being taken instead, or one where moving a piece is impossible as it would place the king in check.
- 11The flagstick: the flag-bearing pole which marks the location of a hole
- 12The spot at the exact centre of the house (the target area)
- 13The spot at the exact centre of the target, originally a literal pin that fastened the target in place.
- 14A mood, a state of being.
- 15One of a row of pegs in the side of an ancient drinking cup to mark how much each person should drink.
- 16Caligo.
- 17A thing of small value; a trifle.
- 18A peg in musical instruments for increasing or relaxing the tension of the strings.
- 19A short shaft, sometimes forming a bolt, a part of which serves as a journal.
- 20The tenon of a dovetail joint.
- 21A size of brewery cask, equal to half a firkin, or eighth of a barrel.
- 22A pinball machine.
- 23A small cylindrical object which blocks the rotation of a pin-tumbler lock when the incorrect key is inserted.
- 24An injection of PEDs.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how pin appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
With pins of adamant / And chains they made all fast.
Pull the pin out of the grenade before throwing it at the enemy.
Etymology
From Middle English pinne, from Old English pinn (“pin, peg, bolt”), from Proto-Germanic *pinnaz, *pinnō, *pint- (“protruding point, peak, peg, pin, nail”), from Proto-Indo-European *bend- (“protruding object, pointed peg, nail, edge”). Related to pen (“enclosure”). Cognate with Dutch pin (“peg, pin”), Low German pin, pinne (“pin, point, nail, peg”), German Pinn, Pinne (“pin, tack, peg”), Bavarian Pfonzer, Pfunzer (“sharpened point”), Danish pind (“pin, pointed stick”), Norwegian pinn (“stick”), Swedish pinne (“peg, rod, stick”), Icelandic pinni (“pin”). More at pintle. No relation to classical Latin pinna (“fin, flipper, wing-like appendage, wing, feather”), which was extended to mean "ridge, peak, point" (compare pinnacle), and often confused with Latin penna (“wing, feather”). More at feather and pen (Etymology 3).
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "pin", not the corpus desk frequency band.