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
Stan Choe, Los Angeles Times, 17 June 2025
Has that been a conscious linchpin that has drawn you to projects?
—Todd Gilchrist, Variety, 21 Mar. 2025
The Joshua tree is cherished for its distinctive silhouette and singular role as a linchpin of the Mojave Desert ecosystem.
—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
See All Example Sentences for linchpin
Cite this Entry
“Linchpin.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/linchpin. Accessed 5 Jul. 2025.
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linchpin
noun
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