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
At Tsurumi, outside Yokohama, another cotter pin evidently sheared off the wheel housing of a southbound freight car.
From Time Magazine Archive
The ring is attached to a light cable which jerks out two cotter pins freeing the flaps of the canvas 'chute-pack.
From Time Magazine Archive
At the Mikawa mine on southern Kyushu island, a cotter pin apparently fell out of a coupling on a string of coal cars halted on a slight incline.
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 Carl Ewald
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
