Obs. Also 7 calkin, cawking, 8 corkin pin. [App. corrupted from cawking, CALKIN, as spelt by the pinmakers in 1690. Origin unknown.] ‘A pin of the largest size’ (J.).
1690[?]. Pinmakers’ Case in oppos. to Killigrew’s Bill (Broadside, Brit. Mus.). Double long whites alias Calkins.—Case or Petit. of Pinmakers (London) (Broadside, Brit. Mus.). Double Long Whites, al. Cawkings.
1727. Swift, Gulliver, II. v. 139. A corking-pin that stuck in the good gentlewoman’s stomacher.
1768. Sterne, Sent. Journ., Case of Delicacy. I could hear two or three corking pins fall out of the curtain.
1770. Foote, Lame Lover, I. Wks. 1799, II. 62. I gave my German a challenge … to drive a corkin pin into the calves of our legs.
1824. Scott, Redgauntlet, xix. Cristal Nixon … had … secured it [his riding-skirt] with large corking-pins.
1840. Hood, Kilmansegg, cxiii. It pierced her heart like a corking-pin.
