pinball machine
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of pinball machine
First recorded in 1935–40
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.
In 1942 Fiorello La Guardia, New York City’s mayor, was photographed smashing a pinball machine with a sledgehammer.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 15, 2026
The Fed slowed QT because the standing repo facility, their emergency lending window, started lighting up like a pinball machine.
From MarketWatch • Dec. 5, 2025
A vintage “Halloween” pinball machine and a life-size Nosferatu hover near his easy chair.
From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 23, 2025
Because particles have a charge, their flight path resembles a ball in a pinball machine as they zigzag against the electromagnetic fields through the cosmic microwave background.
From Science Daily • Nov. 23, 2023
He fumbled with the handle of a pinball machine in the darkness of the game room, his liquid eyes as yearning and sincere as those of a puppy.
From "Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, And A Dream" by H.G. Bissinger
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.
