What is so "neat" about a pin? What is the origin of the phrase "as neat as a pin"? Well, I found the answers. Actually, I found
four answers:
1. "Neat" derived from a word which also meant "shiny."
2. The phrase uses the original 16th-century of definition of "neat" as "clean; free from dirt." But who would ever describe a pin as "neat"?
3. The phrase references the well-made mass-produced pins of the early 1800s in contrast to the earlier hand-made, and often irregular, pins of previous years.
4. The 1898
Dictionary Of Phrase & Fable lists a variant of the phrase: "
Neat as a Pin, or
Neat as a New Pin. Very prim and tidy." The phrase may have originally been "as neat as a
new pin" and became shortened in the same way that "Happy as a clam at high tide" became shortened to "Happy as a clam" (which makes no sense) and "The proof of the pudding is in the eating" became shortened to "The proof is in the pudding" (which makes no sense).
So I found four different origins of the phrase.....and I can't pin it down any further. (Today's bad pun.
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