Pinkerton
UK/ˈpɪŋkətən/US/ˈpɪŋkɚtən/
Pinkerton proper noun: a habitational surname from Old English.
Proper noun
Pinkerton (plural Pinkertons)
- A habitational surname from Old English.
Noun
Pinkerton (plural Pinkertons)
- An operative employed by the Pinkerton National Detective Agency founded by Allan Pinkerton (1819–1884).
- My heart wells up in admiration of the man, as I think of his participation in the memorable struggle of Homestead. He fought the Pinkertons, the myrmidons of Capital.1912, Alexander Berkman, chapter 6, in Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist
- He joined the pickets in the bloody Homestead steel strike of 1892, and actually went so far as to jostle a Pinkerton.1950 September 4, “Kiss the Donkey”, in Time
Forms of Pinkerton
| Proper noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | Pinkertons |
| Noun | |
| plural | Pinkertons |
Origin of Pinkerton
Habitational surname from a place near Dunbar, from an unexplained first element + Old English tūn (“enclosure”). This surname is well established in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Words formed from Pinkerton
Questions about Pinkerton
- What does Pinkerton mean?
- Pinkerton means a habitational surname from Old English.
- What part of speech is Pinkerton?
- Pinkerton can be a proper noun or a noun.
- How do you pronounce Pinkerton?
- Pinkerton is pronounced /ˈpɪŋkətən/ (UK).
Words near Pinkerton in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Pinkerton (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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Cite this entry: “Pinkerton.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pinkerton. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.