Word.ws English Dictionary

pinch at

pinch at verb: to find fault with; to take exception to.

Verb

pinch at (third-person singular simple present pinches at, present participle pinching at, simple past and past participle pinched at)

  1. (obsolete) To find fault with; to take exception to.
    • […]and lastly in what case the Putcase, and his fellowes are, that in broade speeches openly, and in printed bookes directly oppugne them; and by calumnious questions pinch at them?1592, Matthew Sutcliffe1, “CERTAINE QVESTIONS PROPOVNDED to the Putcase and his adherents”, in An Answer to a certaine libel supplicatorie, […] and also to certaine calumnious articles […] to the...
    • If the enimie come home to vs it is not ten subsidies that wil satisfie him: & why are men so wret∣ched as to pinch at one or two?1599, Edward Topsell, “18th sermon”, in Times lamentation: or An exposition on the prophet Ioel, in sundry sermons or meditations, page 229

Forms of pinch at

third-person singular presentpinches at
present participlepinching at
past participlepinched at
pastpinched at

Questions about pinch at

What does pinch at mean?
Pinch at means to find fault with; to take exception to.
What part of speech is pinch at?
Pinch at is a verb.
What is the past tense of pinch at?
The past tense of pinch at is pinched at.

Words near pinch at in the dictionary

  1. pincertails
  2. pincerwise
  3. pinch
  4. pinch a loaf
  5. pinch and a punch for the first of the month
  6. pinch at
  7. pinch bar
  8. pinch bars
  9. pinch cake
  10. pinch cakes
  11. pinch effect

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pinch at (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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