cotter
1 Americannoun
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a pin, wedge, key, or the like, fitted or driven into an opening to secure something or hold parts together.
verb (used with object)
noun
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any part, such as a pin, wedge, key, etc, that is used to secure two other parts so that relative motion between them is prevented
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short for cotter pin
verb
noun
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Also called: cottier. English history a villein in late Anglo-Saxon and early Norman times occupying a cottage and land in return for labour
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Also called: cottar. a peasant occupying a cottage and land in the Scottish Highlands under the same tenure as an Irish cottier
Etymology
Origin of cotter1
1300–50; Middle English coter; akin to late Middle English coterell iron bracket; of uncertain origin
Origin of cotter2
1175–1225; Middle English cotere < Anglo-French cot ( i ) er; see cot 2, -er 2
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Serial writers ran out of hazards years ago, have been working switches on them ever since; the loose cotter pin on the stagecoach, for example, has been used an estimated 7,000 times.
From Time Magazine Archive
As far as anyone could determine, both tragedies resulted from faulty cotter pins, only an inch or two long.
From Time Magazine Archive
As the U.S. cotter pin in the United Nations, Lodge was given Cabinet status and a large voice in U.S. policy�and grew in stature to measure up to both.
From Time Magazine Archive
The cause of the accident was narrowed down to a cotter pin, which one of the mechanics at Valbuena Field had forgotten to replace after greasing the landing wheels that morning.
From Time Magazine Archive
"On swinging tussock the lapwing leaps, Lark's note above plover's swelling, As the crook-backed cotter in silence creeps From his lonely moorland dwelling."
From The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories by Ewald, Carl
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
