pin money
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈpɪnmʌni/
Forms: form: pin-money
Senses: examples: text: Meronyms: pocket change, small change, loose change
text: Near-synonym: petty cash
text: Damn you for a Son of a Bitch! Shall you wear such Things, and I want Pin-Money?
ref: 1723, Charles Walker, Memoirs of Sally Salisbury, section VI:
text: Good gracious! Lord bless me! only think! dear me! Mr. Darcy! Who would have thought it! And is it really true? Oh! my sweetest Lizzy! how rich and how great you will be! What pin money, what jewels, what carriages you will have!
ref: 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter XVII, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volume III, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 301:
text: [H]e practised economy in the matter of his wife's pin-money.
ref: 1886, George Gissing, chapter 27, in Demos: A Story of English Socialism:
text: But these sums were but a small part of their income, were merely pin money for their wives and children.
ref: 1911, David Graham Phillips, chapter 7, in The Conflict:
text: Certain it is that out of the lavish pin-money which her father gave her as a free gift from time to time, she only doled out a meagre allowance to her husband, and although she had everything she wanted, M. le Marquis on his side had often less than twenty francs in his pocket.
ref: 1921, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “On the Brink”, in Castles in the Air: Being the Adventures of M. Hector Ratichon, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1922, →OCLC, § 1, page 75:
synonyms: pocket money
spending money
walk-around money
walking-around money
beer money
hypernyms: allowance
glosses: An allowance of money given by a man to his wife or to other dependents for their personal, discretionary use.
examples: text: Meronyms: pocket change, small change, loose change
text: Near-synonym: petty cash
text: "Money—yes; pin money: a couple of hundred thousand, perhaps. Not more." Washington's eyes blazed. "A couple of hundred thousand dollars! do you call that pin money?"
ref: 1892, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter III, in The American Claimant, New York, N.Y.: Charles L[uther] Webster & Co., →OCLC, page 43:
text: "When did you leave Oklahoma? Where is Reddy McGill now? Why are you selling those impossible contraptions on the street?["] […] "A year ago," answered Kansas Bill systematically. "Putting up windmills in Arizona. For pin money to buy etceteras with.["]
ref: 1906 August, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “A Ruler of Men”, in H[arry] P[eyton] S[teger], editor, Rolling Stones, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company for Review of Reviews Co., published 1915, →OCLC, page 9:
text: Andrew pays all the farm expenses, but the housekeeping accounts fall to me. I make a fairish amount of pin money on my poultry and some of my preserves that I send to Boston, […]
ref: 1917, Christopher Morley, chapter 3, in Parnassus on Wheels, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, →OCLC, page 26:
synonyms: pocket money
spending money
walk-around money
walking-around money
beer money
coordinate_terms: chump change
glosses: A relatively small sum of cash kept in one's personal possession for routine expenses or incidental purchases; an amount of money which is not particularly significant.