Word.ws English Dictionary

pull the pin

pull the pin verb: to opt out; to withdraw; to resign.

Verb

pull the pin (third-person singular simple present pulls the pin, present participle pulling the pin, simple past and past participle pulled the pin)

  1. (colloquial) To opt out; to withdraw; to resign.
    • He intended to become Castle Rock's Head Selectman when Steve Frazier finally pulled the pin, and after six or seven years of that, he intended to stand for the State House of Representatives.1991, Stephen King, Needful Things

Forms of pull the pin

third-person singular presentpulls the pin
present participlepulling the pin
past participlepulled the pin
pastpulled the pin

Questions about pull the pin

What does pull the pin mean?
Pull the pin means to opt out; to withdraw; to resign.
What part of speech is pull the pin?
Pull the pin is a verb.
What is the past tense of pull the pin?
The past tense of pull the pin is pulled the pin.

Words near pull the pin in the dictionary

  1. pull the long bow
  2. pull the other leg
  3. pull the other one
  4. pull the other one, it's got bells on
  5. pull the other one, it's got brass bells on
  6. pull the pin
  7. pull the plug
  8. pull the pud
  9. pull the reins in on someone
  10. pull the reins in on something
  11. pull the rug

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pull the pin (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: “pull the pin.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pull_the_pin. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.