Learn 30 phrasal verbs in 30 days!

Jumpstart your vocabulary in 2017.

This is Day 4 of your 30-day challenge.

Today, we'll be learning phrasal verbs with "pin".

When you pin something down, it has nothing to do with pinning something up.

We usually use the phrase ‘to pin something down’ in the negative: I can’t pin it down.

That means, I can’t understand or identify something.

There’s something strange about him, but I can’t quite pin it down.

I can’t quite figure out what is strange about him.

If you pin a person down, then you physically hold them, maybe sit on them, make them unable to get up.

We broke up the fight and pinned them down.

It also means to get someone to be very clear about something,

for example, I keep trying to make lunch plans with Sara, but I can’t get her to pin down a date.

If you pin something on someone, well, it can literally mean to attach something to someone with a pin:

she pinned the corsage on her date.

But it can also mean, to try to make someone responsible for something,

to try to make someone take the blame for something.

She was in charge of the project that failed, but she tried to pin it on me.

We also use it idiomatically to pin your hopes to or on something or someone.

This is when you rely completely on this one thing or person to fix a situation.

I’m pinning all my hopes on this new teacher, that she can help my son understand math.

What about if you pin something up?

Here, you are attaching something to a wall with pins.

I pinned up an advertisement for a roommate on the bulletin board.

As a noun, a pinup is a beautiful, sexy woman.

Someone who would maybe be in a poster that you would put in a wall.

She’s Hollywood’s latest pinup girl.

‘Pin’ is a simple little word.

The P consonant and the IH vowel, pi-.

Ih, the tongue tip is down, but the front part arches towards the front of the roof of the mouth, ih, pi-ih.

Pin. Then the N consonant, where the front top of the tongue comes to the roof of the mouth.

ihn-- pin.

The rest of the tongue is relaxed, nn. Pin, pin.

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