pin down

verb

pinned down; pinning down; pins down

transitive verb

1

: to cause or force (someone) to make a definite statement or decision about something

Reporters tried to pin him down on the specific changes he wants to make to the tax laws.

2

: to find out (something) with certainty

Can you pin down when the change occurred?

I'm trying to pin the source of the problem down.

Examples of pin down in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

This is useful since otherwise the numbers might be scattered widely across a vast data structure and not be readily pinned down. —Lance Eliot, Forbes.com, 15 Sep. 2025

Prophesizing the Skies For thousands of years, would-be weather forecasters struggled to pin down the relevant factors. —Zack Savitsky, Quanta Magazine, 15 Sep. 2025

Utah Governor Spencer Cox said on Sunday that investigators are still trying to pin down a motive for the attack on the Turning Point USA co-founder. —Toby Meyjes shane Croucher, MSNBC Newsweek, 15 Sep. 2025

Trying to pin down what a novelist actually believes is a sure way to get trapped in a labyrinth of misreadings and fallacies. —Jeremy Gordon, The Atlantic, 12 Sep. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1765, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for pin down

• adown
• blowdown
• breakdown
• countdown
• crackdown
• crosstown
• downtown
• drawdown
• dropdown
• facedown
• godown
• hometown