This week’s theme
Words from ball games

This week’s words
Hail Mary
kingpin
wheelhouse
snooker
jump ball

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(KING-pin)

MEANING:

noun:
1. The most important person in an organization, especially one who is the head of a crime organization.
2. The tallest, foremost, or the central pin in an arrangement of bowling pins.
3. A main bolt, for example, a large vertical bolt in an axle of a vehicle.

ETYMOLOGY:

From skittles, a lawn game involving pins that are toppled by a ball, the ancestor of modern bowling. Earliest documented use: 1773.

USAGE:

“Cartels have a way of reorganising, and new kingpins are already moving into the vacant space in the market.”
Laundering in Texas; The Economist (London, UK); Oct 26, 1996.

See more usage examples of kingpin in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: