linchpin
noun
Did you know?
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
David D. Kirkpatrick, New Yorker, 30 Mar. 2026
The movement frames these systems not merely as traffic technologies, but also as linchpins of an expanding government data dragnet – one that demands stronger democratic oversight and community consent.
—Jess Reia, The Conversation, 27 Mar. 2026
Kamilla is really the linchpin to Rizo’s plan to stay.
—Brian Moylan, Vulture, 26 Mar. 2026
Garrett Crochet was the linchpin of the win.
—Gabrielle Starr, Boston Herald, 26 Mar. 2026
See All Example Sentences for linchpin
Cite this Entry
“Linchpin.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/linchpin. Accessed 31 Mar. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
linchpin
noun
