# pinching

Pronunciation: say "PINCH-ing" /ˈpɪnt͡ʃɪŋ/

## Verb

1. Present participle and gerund of pinch. — present participle and gerund of pinch
   - Simple: Present participle and gerund of pinch. Use it after 'is', 'are' or 'was', or to name the action itself.
   - _She sat at her desk pinching the bridge of her nose, trying to stay awake._
   - _Rising rents are pinching families who were already struggling to get by._

## Adjective

2. Squeezing hard enough to hurt, or causing a sharp feeling like that of a pinch, as bitter cold can.
   - Simple: Squeezing you in a way that hurts, or feeling like that, as very cold air can.
   - _A pinching wind came off the lake and turned our ears red within minutes._
   - _She kicked off the pinching heels as soon as she got home from the wedding._

## Noun

3. The act of squeezing something tightly, whether by a person's fingers or by something that grips.
   - Simple: Squeezing something tightly between fingers or between two things.
   - _The crab's sudden pinching made him drop it back into the tide pool._
   - _She sealed the edges of the dumplings with quick little pinchings of the dough._
4. The act of stealing, or a single instance of it.
   - Simple: Stealing, or one act of stealing.
   - _A run of petty pinching from the staff room led the manager to put a lock on the door._
   - _The band's most famous pinching was a melody lifted almost note for note from an older hit._
5. In horticulture, the removal of a plant's new growth by pinching it off.
   - Simple: Removing the new growth of a plant by nipping it off with your fingers.
   - _With regular pinching through early summer, the chrysanthemums grew into thick, rounded mounds._
   - _The growers compared plants given three pinchings with plants that were left alone._

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/pinching (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).