ten-pins, n. pl.
(ˈtɛnpɪnz)
a. A game in which ten pins (see pin n.1 8) or ‘men’ are set up to be bowled at; cf. ninepins; spec. (orig. U.S.) a game so played, also called in England ‘American bowls’. Also, the pins with which this game is played; in sing. tenpin, one of these.
| [1600 Rowlands Lett. Humours Blood iv. 64 To play at loggets, nine holes, or ten pinnes.] 1807 Crabbe Par. Reg. iii. 106 When justice winked on every jovial crew, And tenpins tumbled in the parson's view. 1842 Dickens Amer. Notes vi, Tin-Pins being a game of mingled chance and skill, invented when the legislature passed an act forbidding Nine-Pins. 1884 H. C. Bunner in Harper's Mag. Jan. 298/2 Base-ball and ten-pins are in no great favor. 1893 Nation (N.Y.) 20 July 54/2 Even a ten-pin must be set up before it is knocked down. |
b. attrib. and Comb., as ten-pin alley, ten-pin ball, ten-pin bowling.
| 1835 P. H. Nicklin Lett. Descr. Va. Springs 23 The means of amusement at the Warm Springs, consist of a bagatelle table..a tin-pin alley [etc.]. 1842 [see bowling saloon s.v. bowling vbl. n. 3]. 1852 C. A. Bristed Upper Ten Thousand v. 117 Perhaps we shall find him at the ten-pin alley. 1868 M. H. Smith Sunshine & Shadow N. York 218 The click of the billiard ball, and the booming of the ten-pin alley, are distinctly heard. 1870 O. Logan Before Footlights 120 Finely cut bits of paper, for fatal snowstorms; ten-pin balls, for the distant muttering of the storm. 1895 Outing (U.S.) XXVI. 444/1 You rush to the bottom like a ten-pin ball sent spinning down its alley. 1934 A.B.C. Bulletin 25 Oct. 11/1 (heading) Tenpin Bowling—‘The Sport of Kings’. 1960 Observer 17 Jan. 3/3 Ten-pin bowling, as its sponsors call it, went to America with the planters and the pilgrims... The game that is being re⁓imported is hedged about with expensive equipment and social ballyhoo, but is simple enough in itself. 1975 Oxf. Compan. Sports & Games 90/1 Tenpin bowling has reached a stage where it can claim to be the largest participant sport in the world. |