pinched

pinched
    adj 1: sounding as if the nose were pinched; "a whining nasal
           voice" [syn: {adenoidal}, {pinched}, {nasal}]
    2: very thin especially from disease or hunger or cold;
       "emaciated bony hands"; "a nightmare population of gaunt men
       and skeletal boys"; "eyes were haggard and cavernous"; "small
       pinched faces"; "kept life in his wasted frame only by grim
       concentration" [syn: {bony}, {cadaverous}, {emaciated},
       {gaunt}, {haggard}, {pinched}, {skeletal}, {wasted}]
    3: not having enough money to pay for necessities [syn: {hard
       up}, {impecunious}, {in straitened circumstances(p)},
       {penniless}, {penurious}, {pinched}]
    4: as if squeezed uncomfortably tight; "her pinched toes in her
       pointed shoes were killing her"
    

Pinch \Pinch\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Pinched}; p. pr. & vb. n.
   {Pinching}.] [F. pincer, probably fr. OD. pitsen to pinch;
   akin to G. pfetzen to cut, pinch; perhaps of Celtic origin.
   Cf. {Piece}.]
   1. To press hard or squeeze between the ends of the fingers,
      between teeth or claws, or between the jaws of an
      instrument; to squeeze or compress, as between any two
      hard bodies.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. to seize; to grip; to bite; -- said of animals. [Obs.]
      [1913 Webster]

            He [the hound] pinched and pulled her down.
                                                  --Chapman.
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   3. To plait. [Obs.]
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            Full seemly her wimple ipinched was.  --Chaucer.
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   4. Figuratively: To cramp; to straiten; to oppress; to
      starve; to distress; as, to be pinched for money.
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            Want of room . . . pinching a whole nation. --Sir W.
                                                  Raleigh.
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   5. To move, as a railroad car, by prying the wheels with a
      pinch. See {Pinch}, n., 4.
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   6. To seize by way of theft; to steal; to lift. [Slang]
      --Robert Barr.
      [Webster 1913 Suppl.]

   7. to catch; to arrest (a criminal).
      [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
    

83 Moby Thesaurus words for "pinched":
      attenuated, badly off, cadaverous, careworn, clamped, compressed,
      concentrated, condensed, consolidated, constricted, contracted,
      corpselike, cramped, desperate, distressed, down to bedrock, drawn,
      emacerated, emaciate, emaciated, embarrassed, feeling the pinch,
      haggard, hard pressed, hard up, hollow-eyed, ill off, impecunious,
      in Queer Street, in desperate straits, in extremis, in extremities,
      in narrow circumstances, in reduced circumstances,
      in straitened circumstances, jejune, knitted, land-poor, marantic,
      marasmic, narrow, nipped, on the edge, out of pocket, peaked,
      peaky, pinched-in, poor, poorly off, puckered, puny, pursed,
      reduced, short, short of cash, short of funds, short of money,
      shriveled, skeletal, solidified, sorely pressed, squeezed, starved,
      starveling, straitened, strangled, strangulated, strapped, tabetic,
      tabid, underfed, undernourished, unmoneyed, unprosperous,
      up against it, wasp-waisted, wasted, weazeny, withered, wizened,
      worn, wraithlike, wrinkled