pinhead

See also: pin-head and Pinhead

English

Alternative forms

• pin-head
• pin head

Etymology

pin +‎ head

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɪn.hɛd/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪnhɛd

Noun

pinhead (plural pinheads)

1. The head of a pin. (Frequently used in size comparisons.)
   • 1810, Thomas Thomson, A System of Chemistry, Vol. 4, Bell & Bradfute, page 602:

     The moment the nitre was red hot, the coal, previously reduced to small pieces of the size of a pinhead, was projected in portions of one or two grains at a time…

   • 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 203:

     Settlements some centuries old, and still no bigger than pinheads on the untouched expanse of their background.

2. (slang) A foolish or stupid person.

   Synonyms: doofus, dumbbell, dunce; see also Thesaurus:idiot

   • 1977, “Pinhead”, in Leave Home, performed by Ramones:

     I don't want to be a pinhead no more / I just met a nurse that I could go for

   • 1990, Kindergarten Cop:

     My daddy repairs cars driven by women who are pinheads.

   • 1998, J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, page 212:

     Percy, who hadn't noticed that Fred had bewitched his prefect badge so that it now read "Pinhead," kept asking them all what they were sniggering at.

3. (slang) A telemark skier.
4. (slang, medicine) A human head that is unusually tapered or small, often due to microcephaly, or a person with that trait. Often promoted in freak shows as "human pinheads".
   • 1939, Amram Scheinfeld, Morton David Schweitzer, You and Heredity, Frederick A. Stokes Co., page 155:

     The microcephalic idiot is an unfortunate with a "pinhead," sometimes exhibited as a "what's-it" in circus side-shows, whose mental age never goes beyond that of an imbecile.

   • 1943, Oliver Ramsay Pilat, Sodom by the Sea: An Affectionate History of Coney Island, Garden City Publishing, page 187:

     Zip the What-Is-It was simply a Negro idiot. […] For half an hour at a time, David Belasco used to watch Zip at Coney Island. The producer insisted he saw signs of intelligence in the pinhead […]

5. (slang, pet stores) A newborn cricket used as food for pets.
   • 1994, Raymond E. Hunziker, Leopard Geckos‎^[1], Publisher, →ISBN, page 16:

     A newly hatched gecko will need pretty small crickets, but you will not have to go all the way down to pinheads.

   • 2000, Manny Rubio, Scorpions: Everything About Purchase, Care, Feeding, and Housing‎^[2], Barron's Educational Series, →ISBN, page 70:

     Crickets can be purchased in many sizes from newborns ("pinheads") to adults.

6. (mycology) The immature juvenile fruiting body of a mushroom prior to its gills opening.

Derived terms

• count angels on pinheads
• pinhead oatmeal

Related terms

• pinheaded

Translations

head of a pin

• Finnish: nuppineulanpää
• French: tête d’épingle (fr) f
• Georgian: ქინძისთავი (kinʒistavi)
• Hungarian: gombostűfej (hu)

foolish or stupid person

• Finnish: ääliö (fi), tomppeli (fi), tollo (fi)
• German: Dummkopf (de) m, Holzkopf (de) m, Dummbatz m
• Polish: kurzy móżdżek m, ptasi móżdżek (pl) m

telemark skier

• Finnish: tellumies

unusually small head

Anagrams

• hand pie, headpin