How to Use pincushion in a Sentence

pincushion

noun
  • By the time she’s done, my palms are black and blue and look like a pincushion, with neat little rows of red dots.
    Amy Poeppel, New York Times, 17 Apr. 2020
  • The dog’s face looked like a pincushion, with some 500 spines protruding from her face, paws and body.
    Ed Yong, Discover Magazine, 11 Dec. 2012
  • Scutellosaurus, found in the roughly 200-million-year-old rock of the Navajo Nation, was not a big, four-on-the-floor pincushion like some of its later cousins.
    Riley Black, Smithsonian Magazine, 31 May 2022
  • The watch is inspired by two items that were always near Gabrielle Chanel: a pair of scissors suspended from her neck with ribbon, and a pincushion.
    Isiah Magsino, Town & Country, 25 Jan. 2023
  • At night, the sky is incredibly clear, a pincushion studded with millions of stars.
    WSJ, 9 Mar. 2021
  • The round pincushion flowers draw hummingbirds, butterflies and other fliers in late spring, then give way to fruits that feed birds.
    Paul Cappiello, The Courier-Journal, 16 Apr. 2021
  • These styles have a similar pincushion shape but, instead of spikes, have several holes on top for placing stems.
    Grace Haynes, Southern Living, 20 Mar. 2021
  • Stony Brook could have chosen to place its center on the western edge, across from the Statue of Liberty, with lower Manhattan’s pincushion over in the corner of the panorama.
    Developing Governors Island, Curbed, 11 May 2023
  • Why? The proud, efficient and bilious store manager, Pauline (Eva Kaminsky), is all business; her upswept hair is a pincushion of pens.
    Jesse Green, New York Times, 21 Feb. 2023
  • Florist’s Pink’ is the richest pink, opening up an entirely new color spectrum for pincushion lovers.
    Earl Nickel, San Francisco Chronicle, 13 Apr. 2018
  • The second plant was Navarretia mellita, or the honeyscented pincushion plant.
    Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 4 Mar. 2016
  • As for the pincushion plant, some indifferent animal (probably a jackrabbit) likes to bite off the entire flowering heads—spikes and all.
    Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 4 Mar. 2016
  • Decked out for war by costume designer Linda Cho, Wong carries face mask-shooting guns and wears a bandolier of thread spools, a giant pair of scissors strapped kitana-style to her back and pincushion armbands.
    Pam Kragen, San Diego Union-Tribune, 26 Sep. 2022
  • The Albanian section of the menu is brief and distinctly carnal, including smaller but still rugged qofte the size of pincushions, fat tubes of veal sausage (qebapa) and skinny links of beef (suxhuk) with a tickle of paprika.
    Ligaya Mishan, New York Times, 14 Sep. 2017
  • On the island of Laputa, Gulliver visits the Academy of Lagado, where the sages, the first progressives, are busy trying to make pincushions out of marble, breeding naked sheep, and improving the language by getting rid of all the words.
    Jill Lepore, The New Yorker, 5 June 2017
  • Toni Kizer, vice president for collections management, said one of her favorite pieces is at the bottom right corner of the living room’s display cabinet: a statuette of Hitler bending over, with a pincushion as his rear end.
    Washington Post, 6 June 2017
  • Toni Kiser, assistant director for collections management, said one of her favorite pieces is at the bottom right corner of the living room’s display cabinet: a statuette of Hitler bending over, with a pincushion as his rear end.
    Janet McConnaughey, The Seattle Times, 6 June 2017
  • But the collection that captivated many editors was a limited selection of designs based on the pincushion found on the wrists of les petite mains, the seamstresses who excel at couture needlework in the atelier’s workrooms.
    Laurie Brookins, The Hollywood Reporter, 10 Apr. 2023
  • Black / Brown Chocolate cosmos, pincushion plant, amaranth, fiddleheads, and agonis are all incredible together—a bit moody, yes, but not too somber.
    Heather Arndt Anderson, Sunset Magazine, 12 Feb. 2020
  • And also, the months of lockdown that may have realigned our priorities away from office conflicts and toxic relationships crystallized how noxious youth sports have become for those pincushion refs.
    Washington Post, 6 Dec. 2021
  • The Hellbound Heart, the film revolves around a mysterious puzzle box that, when unlocked, calls forth the Cenobites, sadomasochists from another dimension, whose leader resembles a human pincushion.
    Gregg Kilday, The Hollywood Reporter, 4 Nov. 2022
  • While the pincushion Protea flower was recognizable from grocery story bouquets, other examples, such as the furry, pinkish teddy bear Banksia, seemed straight out of science fiction.
    Tanya Ward Goodman, Washington Post, 26 May 2022
  • Fewer than ten thousand individuals remain worldwide of the Siler pincushion cactus, according to a 2006 survey that Wellard fears is now an overestimate.
    The Salt Lake Tribune, 31 Oct. 2020
  • Artfully hung with Chinese silk pincushions and silk flowers designed by floral artist Katsuya Nishimori, this Christmas tree provides a focal point for a seasonal cocktail party and a family dinner.
    Sarah Yang, House Beautiful, 25 Dec. 2013
  • The person who sews in your life might appreciate a pincushion cactus (mammillaria crinita) while a budding zoologist might like panda plant (kalanchoe tomentosa), snake plant (sansevieria trifasciata) or zebra plant (haworthia fasciata).
    oregonlive, 31 Mar. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'pincushion.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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