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Glite Dictionary
to pin back

to pin back

1 9.5
To make the ears lie closer to the head by surgery
  • phrasal verb
  • /pɪn bæk/
  • Specialized
translation icon : operarse las orejas
  • Occasionally, Mrs. Geary would go to a stylist to have her hair cut and shaped, but most of the time, she wore it pinned back in a severe bun.
  • ears pinned back

Examples

  • See how his ears are pinned back?

    Fiction book (2001)

  • She was grinning from ear to ear, looking more like a victor than someone who had just had her ears pinned back.

    Academic text (1995)

  • She had her ears pinned back, her nose reshaped, and her chin was also restructured.

    Blog text (28)

  • At age 16, they told me I needed to have my ears pinned back.

  • Using the latest techniques in cosmetic surgery, I will have my ears pinned back.

  • Nadia asked for her protruding ears to be pinned back.

Surface Forms

pin back infinitive
pinned back past
pinned back past participle
pinning back present participle
pins back third person singular

Morphology

pin + back

The combination of 'pin' (to fasten) + 'back' (toward the rear) yields a clear directional/actional idea — fastening something so it lies back — so learners could infer that ears are being held or pushed back. However, the specific clinical/cosmetic sense of surgically altering the ears (pinnaplasty) is specialized and not fully predictable from the parts, making the phrase only partially transparent.

Etymology

Pin back comes from the simple picture of using a pin to hold something toward the back. For ears, imagine folding the ear toward the head and holding it with a pin or stitch; that image explains why pin back means 'to push or fasten the ears closer to the head'.