linchpin
noun
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In his 1857 novel, Tom Brown’s School Days, Thomas Hughes describes the “cowardly” custom of “taking the linch-pins out of the farmers’ and bagmens’ gigs at the fairs.” The linchpin in question held the wheel on the carriage, and removing it made it likely that the wheel would come off as the vehicle moved. Such a pin was called a lynis in Old English; Middle English speakers added pin to form lynspin. By the early 20th century, English speakers were using linchpin for anything as critical to a complex situation as a linchpin is to a wagon, as when Winston Churchill, in 1930, wrote of Canada and the role it played in the relationship between Great Britain and the United States, that “no state, no country, no band of men can more truly be described as the linchpin of peace and world progress.”
Examples of linchpin in a Sentence
Grace Toohey, Los Angeles Times, 30 May 2025
Despite economic realities, Trump touts coal as a linchpin of his second-term policies.
—Michael Hawthorne, Chicago Tribune, 25 May 2025
What’s more, the tariffs and the president’s disregard for the traditions of international diplomacy have damaged the status of the dollar and the U.S. Treasury bond as linchpins of the world financial system.
—Jeff Sommer, New York Times, 2 May 2025
In the first instance, this means being able to reinforce Poland, which by reason of size, location, and topography is both the eastern linchpin of European defense and the ideal base from which to counter Russian threats against the Baltic states and the continent’s southeast.
—Barry R. Posen, Foreign Affairs, 21 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for linchpin
Cite this Entry
“Linchpin.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/linchpin. Accessed 17 Jun. 2025.
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linchpin
noun
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