pinion

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The wing of a bird.
2. n. The outer rear edge of the wing of a bird, containing the primary feathers.
3. n. A primary feather of a bird.
4. v. To remove or bind the wing feathers of (a bird) to prevent flight.
5. v. To cut or bind (the wings of a bird).
6. v. To restrain or immobilize (a person) by binding the arms.
7. v. To bind (a person's arms).
8. v. To bind fast or hold down; shackle.
9. n. A small cogwheel that engages or is engaged by a larger cogwheel or a rack.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A feather; especially, a remex or flight-feather.
2. n. The wing of a bird, or the flight-feathers collectively.
3. n. Technically, in ornithology, the joint of a bird's wing furthest from the body; the distal segment of the wing; the manus, consisting of the carpus, metacarpus, and phalanges, collectively bearing the primary remiges, or largest flight-feathers, and the alula or bastard-wing. Most adult birds show the seven separate bones of the pinion here figured; but in a few adults, and probably in all embryos, the osseous elements are more numerous.
4. n. In entomology, one of various moths: as, the brown-spot pinion, Anchocelis litura.
5. n. [⟨ pinion, verb] A shackle or band for the arm.
6. To bind or confine the wings of (a bird); restrain or confine by binding the wings, or by cutting off the pinions; bind or confine (the wings). A very common but cruel method of pinioning, practised especially upon geese by poulterers, is to twist the pinion over the next joint of the wing, where it is confined by the primaries resting upon the secondaries.
7. To bind or confine the arm or arms of (a person) to the body so as to disable or render incapable of resistance; shackle.
8. To bind; attach as by bonds or shackles.
9. n. A small wheel with cogs or teeth which engage the teeth of a larger wheel with cogs or teeth, or sometimes only an arbor or spindle having notches or leaves, which are caught successively by the teeth of the wheel, and the motion thereby communicated. See also cut under pawl-press.
10. n. Same as piñon.
11. n. One of two wings or flat projections of any kind.

Wiktionary

1. n. A wing.
2. n. The joint of a bird's wing farthest from the body
3. n. The outermost primary feathers on a bird's wing.
4. v. To remove the joint of a bird's wing farthest from the body to prevent the bird from flying.
5. v. To restrain by binding or holding the arms.
6. n. The smallest gear in a gear drive train.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Zoöl.) A moth of the genus Lithophane, as Lithophane antennata, whose larva bores large holes in young peaches and apples.
2. n. A feather; a quill.
3. n. A wing, literal or figurative.
4. n. The joint of bird's wing most remote from the body.
5. n. A fetter for the arm.
6. n. (Mech.) A cogwheel with a small number of teeth, or leaves, adapted to engage with a larger wheel, or rack (see Rack); esp., such a wheel having its leaves formed of the substance of the arbor or spindle which is its axis.
7. v. To bind or confine the wings of; to confine by binding the wings.
8. v. To disable by cutting off the pinion joint.
9. v. To disable or restrain, as a person, by binding the arms, esp. by binding the arms to the body.
10. v. Hence, generally, to confine; to bind; to tie up.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. any of the larger wing or tail feathers of a bird
2. v. bind the arms of
3. v. cut the wings off (of birds)
4. n. a gear with a small number of teeth designed to mesh with a larger wheel or rack
5. n. wing of a bird