pivot man
- noun
- /ˈpɪvət mæn/
- Jargon
:
hombre pivote
- The coach praised him for being an excellent pivot man, essential for guiding the formation during the game.
Examples
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He's easily one of the best pivot men of a generation.
Blog text (20) -
During the military parade, he served as the pivot man, allowing the squad to perform intricate maneuvers around him.
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As the pivot man in the drill team, she made it easy for her teammates to follow their movements perfectly.
Synonyms
15
3.9
A fixed point that something turns around
A central player who others depend on in a game or team task
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
This is a straightforward compositional compound: 'pivot' (central point/person) modifies 'man' (a person, here a soldier), so the phrase literally denotes a person who serves as the central point around whom others turn. The construction follows normal English modifier+noun pattern and is cross-linguistically transparent, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents should be able to infer the meaning.
Etymology
Pivot man comes from the image of a pivot, a fixed point, and a man who stays still while the rest of the group turns around him, like someone standing at the centre of a circle as others move. That's why it means 'the person in a formation around whom the others turn'.