▪ I. pinny, n.
(ˈpɪnɪ)
Nursery and colloquial name for pinafore. Also attrib. and fig.
| 1851 H. Melville Moby Dick II. xxix. 203 A woman's pinny hand,—the man's wife, I'll wager. 1858 J. A. Symonds Let. 1 Nov. (1967) I. 170 Lady Young..engaged in the construction of pinnies for poor children. 1859 Geo. Eliot A. Bede xx, Now, then, Totty, hold out your pinny. 1884 Blackmore Tommy Upm. II. 240 All the children..with their pinnies full of sugar-plums. 1889 E. Dowson Let. c 21 Oct. (1967) 111 She was disporting herself in a superb way in Gt Russell St—hatless & in a ‘pinny’. 1939 A. Thirkell Brandons i. 18 ‘If we had known mummie was coming, we'd have had our clean pinny on,’ said Nurse. 1962 J. Braine Life at Top xvii. 198 ‘Get me a bloody pinny,’ I said, ‘and you can go out to work.’ 1974 Times 15 Oct. 12/7 A new pinny idea of long skirt, chemise to the knee over a skinny sweater. 1975 Country Life 11 Dec. 1710/1 A practical and pretty pinny to tie round the waist. |
Hence pinnyed (ˈpɪnɪd) a., clad in a pinafore.
| 1963 Guardian 20 Feb. 7/2 The pinny-ed skivvy. |
▪ II. pinny, a. dial. and techn.
(ˈpɪnɪ)
[? f. pin n. or v. + -y.]
Applied in various ways: e.g. a. to soil that is rough, hard, or stiff, and so not easily worked (cf. pinnocky); b. to steel full of rough hard spots (cf. pin n.1 9 b); c. to wool that is clogged or matted together; d. to a file that is clogged or choked with small particles (cf. pin v.1 9).
| 1692 Ray Disc. ii. iv. (1732) 131 A Bed of a bluish sort of Clay very hard brittle and rugged: they call it a pinny Clay. 1795 Pearson in Phil. Trans. LXXXV. 324 Not⁓withstanding this uneven and pinny appearance of the filed surface, a polish was produced. 1831 Sutherland Farm Rep. 81 in Libr. Usef. Knowl., Husb. III, What is open in the staple, or inclined to be pinny in the fleece, are haifed below the double shepherd's house. 1831 J. Holland Manuf. Metal I. 261 He used the technical term already quoted from Dr. Pearson, observing that it was pinny. 1890 Cent. Dict., Pinny, pinned, clogged, choked, as, a pinny file. 1893 Wiltshire Gloss., Pinny-land, arable land where the chalk comes close to the surface, as opposed to the deeper clay land. |