pinched

1. 1
   verb

   Past tense and past participle of pinch.

   She pinched the edges of the dough together to seal the pie.

   Rising rents have pinched young families all over the city.

   Note

   Pinch is regular, so pinched serves as the simple past (she pinched his arm) and as the past participle (his arm was pinched). In slang it can mean stolen, usually of something small: someone pinched my pen. The verb's sense of leaving people short of money or room connects it to the money-squeezed adjective, as in rents have pinched young families.

2. 2
   adjective

   Of a person or a face, looking tense and pale because of cold, worry, or hunger.

   One look at his pinched face told her the news was bad.

   The miners came up from the shaft gray and pinched after twelve hours in the cold.

   Similardrawn, haggard, gaunt

3. 3
   adjective

   Harmed or damaged financially.

   With grocery prices climbing, pinched shoppers are switching to store brands.

   Many pinched retirees have gone back to part-time work.

   Similarhard-pressed, strapped

4. 4
   adjective

   Very thin or narrow, as though drawn tightly together.

   She pressed her lips into a pinched line of disapproval.

   The portrait shows a narrow man with pinched features and a sharp chin.

   Similarthin, tight, narrow

   Note

   This sense belongs to faces and features more than to objects: Edwin Arlington Robinson's Aaron Stark has a thin, pinched mouth, and J. K. Rowling's fast-growing boy a pinched, slightly unhealthy look. The thinness usually hints at hunger or strain, which is why it shades into the pale, strained look; a wire is merely thin, but a pinched face looks drawn in.

5. 5
   adjective

   Squeezed or pressed together; compressed.

   Physical therapy eased the pain from his pinched nerve.

   A pinched fuel line was starving the engine.

   Similarcompressed

   Note

   Everyday talk about injuries is where this meaning lives, above all in pinched nerve, the common name for a nerve that something presses on, such as material escaping from a ruptured disc in the neck. It can describe anything squeezed out of shape, like a hose or a cable, but unlike the thin, drawn sense it is about pressure from outside, not a look.

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