subs. (common).—1. A dilemma; a critical situation; a scrape. Whence, TO COME TO THE PINCH = to face the situation; AT A PINCH = ‘upon a push or exigence.’—B. E. (c. 1696); GROSE (1785).
c. 1486. BERNERS, Froissart’s Chronicles, II. cxviii. AT A PYNCH a frend is knowen.
1607. DEKKER, Westward Ho! iii. 1. O, the wit of a woman when she is put TO THE PINCH.
1613. SELDEN, Drayton’s Poly-olbion, xviii. 735. The Norman IN THIS NARROW PINCH, not so willingly as wisely, granted the desire.
1647. FLETCHER, The Humourous Lieutenant, iv. 4.
| Undone, undone, undone!—Stay, I can lie yet, | |
| And swear too, AT A PINCH; that’s all my comfort. |
1704. SWIFT, Tale of a Tub, i. Where THE PINCH lay I cannot certainly affirm.
1749. SMOLLETT, Gil Blas [ROUTLEDGE], 433. If you want my purse, come and take it: it will not fail you AT A PINCH.
1880. J. GLOVER, Racing Life, 38. It’s one of the deadest PINCHES ever known. I guy or hook it, skedaddle or absquatulate.
2. (racing).—A certainty.
1886–96. MARSHALL, ‘Pomes’ from the Pink ’Un [‘Honest Bill’], 50. The race would be a PINCH, Sir, barring accident or spill.
Verb. (thieves’).—1. To steal: formerly, encroach little by little; to appropriate. THE PINCH (or PINCHING LAY) = (1) pilfering while purchasing, (2) exchanging bad money for good: RINGING THE CHANGES (q.v.). Hence PINCHER (or PINCH-GLOAK) = a shop-lifter. Also, TO PINCH ON THE PARSON’S SIDE = ‘to sharp him of his tithes’; and PINCHED TO THE BONE = robbed of all.—B. E. (c. 1696); GROSE (1785); VAUX (1819).
1362. LANGLAND, Piers Plowman [WRIGHT, vii. 267]. Yf ich ȝede to þe plouh · ich PYNCHEDE on hus half acre.
1712. SHIRLEY, The Black Procession, ii. To PINCH all the lurry he thinks it no sin.
1749. SMOLLETT, Gil Blas [ROUTLEDGE], 378. The old codger will be PINCHED TO THE BONE and left penniless.
1842. P. EGAN, Captain Macheath (Song, ‘Miss Dolly Trull’).
| She runs such precious cranky rigs | |
| With PINCHING wedge and lockets. |
1859. A Hundred Stretches Hence [FARMER, Musa Pedestris (1896), 159]. And where the swag so bleakly PINCHED.
1886–96. MARSHALL, ‘Pomes’ from the Pink ’Un [‘The Luxury of Doing Good’], 41. He charged the barmaid’s mash with the PINCHING of the cash.
1898. BINSTEAD, A Pink ’Un and a Pelican, 227. He was convinced, from the instant he discovered his boodle was gone, that it had been ‘PINCHED.’
2. (thieves’).—To arrest.
c. 1600–62. The Common Cries of London [COLLIER, Roxburghe Ballads (1847), 212].
| And some there be in patcht gownes, | |
| I know not what they be, | |
| That PINCH the country-man | |
| with nimming of a fee. |
1851. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, III. 397. He got acquitted for that there note after he had me PINCHED.
1886–96. MARSHALL, ‘Pomes’ from the Pink ’Un, 72. And she was PINCHED for loitering with felonious intent.
1887. W. E. HENLEY, Villon’s Good-Night, iii.
| For you, you coppers, narks, and dubs, | |
| Who PINCHED me when upon the snam. |
1900. G. R. SIMS, London’s Heart, 284. Her husband had been PINCHED, and these were his pals who were going to try … to get a lawyer to defend him.
3. (old).—‘To cut the Measures of Ale, Beer,’ &c.—B. E. (c. 1696).
TO PINCH AT, verb. phr. (old).—To demur; to fault-find.
1383. CHAUCER, The Canterbury Tales, ‘The Manciples’ Prologue.’
| He speke wol of smale thynges | |
| As for to PYNCHEN AT thy rekenynges, | |
| That were not honeste, if it came to pruf. |
See NAB, NICK, and SHOE.
