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  1. kingpin love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Sports The innermost or central pin in an arrangement of bowling pins.
  2. n. Sports See headpin.
  3. n. The most important person or element in an enterprise or system.
  4. n. See kingbolt.

Wiktionary

  1. n. motorized vehicles The axis around which steered wheels pivot; a bolt that holds the axis in place—a kingbolt.
  2. n. ten pin bowling The pin at the centre of the triangle of bowling pins (originally the tallest pin in kayles). Sometimes also the headpin at the apex.
  3. n. The most important person in an undertaking or organization.
  4. n. The bolt holding together the truck of a roller skate or skateboard.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. the most important person in a group or undertaking
  2. n. bolt that provides a steering joint in a motor vehicle
  3. n. the front bowling pin in the triangular arrangement of ten pins

Etymologies

  1. king + pin (Wiktionary)

Examples

  • “Now it reminds me of a Jamie Oliver episode: Google, the Internet search kingpin, is conducting a huge search of its own: It is scouring the world for a pair of executive chefs.”

    Googleplex-ees Hungry

  • “Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producer in the world and is sometimes referred to as the kingpin of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).”

    NewsBlaze.com Current News - Top Stories

  • “John Leland visits the set of Ridley Scott's American Gangster, "based on the real-life heroin kingpin Frank Lucas [Denzel Washington] and the detective-turned-prosecutor Richie Roberts [Russell Crowe]," and contemplates the evolution of the genre: "In a nation of immigrants, the movies pit audience sympathy for the new immigrant against fear of the unassimilated ethnic clan.”

    GreenCine Daily: Sunday shorts.

  • “Mr. Chavez, who denies ties to the guerillas, has warned that Washington plans to use Mr. Makled, described as a "kingpin among kingpins" by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, to attack his administration.”

    The Wall Street Journal: Colombia Will Extradite Drug Kingpin to Venezuela Instead of U.S.

  • “The Major Narcotics Trafficking Statute, also known as the kingpin law and passed in October, carries the highest penalty for a drug conviction, with a maximum sentence of life in prison.”

    The Wall Street Journal: Greater New York Watch

  • “One never hears about the kingpin of the fried chicken racket, and the patriarch of an old family of brewers is never referred to as a kingpin.”

    Simon & Schuster: CHASING the WHITE DOG

  • “Duck was, to listen to the agents and to read the indictment, the key player, the so-called kingpin.”

    Simon & Schuster: CHASING the WHITE DOG

  • “MICHAEL GOLDSTEIN, METRO TRAILER: The Kingpin lock, basically, attaches underneath to trailer, to the kingpin, which is what attaches to the inside of the trailer.”

    CNN Transcript Jun 17, 2007

  • “Chodo Contague, often called the kingpin, is the grand master of organized crime in TunFaire.”

    Dread Brass Shadows

  • “The proposed law carries a maximum sentence of 20 to 25 years in prison with stiffer penalties for so-called "kingpin" traffickers.”

    News - latimes.com

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synonyms (11)

Words with the same meaning

  1. big kahuna
  2. grand poobah
  1. big cheese
  2. muckety muck
  1. big wheel
  2. big noise
  1. top banana
  2. bigwig
  1. top dog
  2. head honcho
  1. big enchilada

hypernyms (6)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. personage
  1. influential person
  1. important person
  1. bolt
  1. pin
  1. bowling pin

same context (22)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. speakeasy
  2. re-issued
  3. mercery
  4. withinthe
  1. from
  2. motorized
  3. sometimesilie
  4. artillerist
  1. trafficker
  2. justices'
  3. tooled-leather
  4. hwy
  1. frost-covered
  2. abusers
  3. up-ended
  4. commissure
  1. impeller
  2. rottenest
  3. vicodin
  4. Shane
  1. two-handled
  2. bostonian

reverse dictionary (2)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. headpin
  1. kingbolt

tags (1)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. cvcccvc

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Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘kingpin’.

Comments

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  • bilby Used in the Same Context
    Shane · abusers · artillerist · bostonian · commissure · from · frost-covered Mar 20, 2011

  • bilby "A people-smuggling kingpin has been found among Tamils on a boat they are refusing to leave at an Indonesian port, potentially bolstering efforts to disrupt a wave of illegal arrivals in Australia. Abraham Lauhenapessy, known as Captain Bram, has brought more than 1500 asylum seekers to Australia since he emerged as a pivotal organiser of Indonesia's people-smuggling operations in 1999."
    - Lindsay Murdoch & Mark Davis, People-smuggler arrested on Tamil boat, theage.com.au, 19 October 2009. Oct 19, 2009

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‘kingpin’ has been looked up 2214 times, loved by 1 person, added to 13 lists, commented on 2 times, and has a Scrabble score of 14.