Talk:hairpin

RFV discussion: March 2016–April 2017

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hairpin

As an adjective: It's merely attributive use of the noun. Donnanz (talk) 09:59, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

I think hairpin can also be a short form of hairpin bend (in motor racing?), but that needs to be verified. Donnanz (talk) 10:43, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

A portion of a road, path, route, etc is not exactly shaped like a hairpin, though the metonymy is obvious to most of us.

We could add a definition like "Any object, especially any kind of path or route that resembles a hairpin when represented on a map." to make the attributive use more obvious. This would accommodate all likely attributive use not covered by the other noun senses. The existing definitions already accommodate more direct physical resemblance. DCDuring TALK 12:07, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Added the noun for a road bend. Equinox ◑ 12:09, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Most of the time, it looks like an attributive noun to me, but I did find the following:

Kiwima (talk) 05:43, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

• I'm not sure how to check the references you've dredged up, but one of them is actually "hairpin-bendy", a rather informal-sounding adjective, not "hairpin". Try Googling "hairpin-like" and "hairpinlike" which are relatively common. Hairpin is still not an adjective in my opinion. Donnanz (talk) 11:19, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
• And I think "hairpin/looped" should read "hairpin-looped". It checks out on Google, as well as "hairpin loop". Donnanz (talk) 16:51, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

  They strike me the same way. At best they are rare metaphorical uses, all of which are readily understood in context by likely readers.

  In addition, the first cite strikes me as using very (“true”) (adjective), which is consistent with the literary-dated language throughout the work. DCDuring TALK 13:09, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

  I wonder whether government would pass this test: 'her style is very government'. It seems to me that nouns actually can be qualified with 'very'. Renard Migrant (talk) 22:35, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Hopefully that will remain a hypothetical question. Nobody has been daft enough to make an adjective out of government. Donnanz (talk) 23:27, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Actually Wiktionary:English adjectives#Tests of whether an English word is an adjective does say that others parts of speech can be modified by too/very. For example I found a hit for very FBI. So being used with 'very' doesn't make it an automatic adjective. Renard Migrant (talk) 23:37, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

* Only the 2014 cite of hairpin is an actual adjective; the 2001 is a noun (where very = real, genuine, utter, total). I agree hairpin is only a noun used as a modifier, and since we have entries for hairpin bend/curve/turn, there's no need for this adj def - which cannot be freely applied to other nouns. - Sonofcawdrey (talk) 23:43, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

RFV - failed Kiwima (talk) 19:59, 21 April 2017 (UTC)