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''bodkin'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''bodkin'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260708144405-00-⌔

bodkin - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Noun

bodkin (plural bodkins)

  • A small sharp pointed tool for making holes in cloth or leather.
  • A blunt needle used for threading ribbon or cord through a hem or casing.
    • ✤ As with compulsory Sunday worship, death for blasphemy was for the third offence. A bodkin, a large blunt needle, was thrust through the tongue for the second offence.1
  • A hairpin.
    • ✤ A rich, flushed colour—large black eyes—teeth that shone from their brilliant whiteness—a slender shape—and most minute feet, in such little shoes of Cordova leather—a silver chain round her neck, to which hung a medal of the Madonna—a dark-brown boddice and short skirt, relieved by a lacing of scarlet riband—long black hair, bound in one large plait round the head, and fastened by a silver bodkin.2
  • A dagger.
    • ✤ When he himſelfe might his Quietus make/With a bare Bodkin?3
    • ✤ And he smote Corinius on his shaven jowl with the dice box, calling him cheat and mangy rascal, whereupon Corinius drew forth a bodkin to smite him in the neck withal; […]4
    • ✤ And can a man his own quietus make/with a bare bodkin?/With daggers, bodkins, bullets, man can make/a bruise or break of exit for his life;/but is that a quietus, O tell me, is it quietus?5
  • A type of long thin arrowhead.
  • (printing) A sharp tool, like an awl, formerly used for pressing down individual type characters (e.g. letters) from a column or page in making corrections.

Adverb

bodkin (not comparable)

  • Closely wedged between two people.
    • ✤ *to sit bodkin *
    • ✤ He’s too big to travel bodkin between you and me.6
    • ✤ Either he must come between us and be what is known as bodkin, or some one must get out and walk; and the bodkin solution not commending itself to me it was plain that if some one walked it must be myself.7
    • ✤ Moreover, Mr. Jorrocks insisted upon riding bodkin — a very awkward-sized bodkin he was — especially as he would have all three to sit back, so that the conversation might be general.8

Etymology

From Middle English boydekin (“dagger”), apparently from ﹡boyde, ﹡boide (of unknown [Celtic?] origin) + -kin. Cognate with Scots botkin, boitkin, boikin (“bodkin”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈbɒdkɪn/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊

Printed 2026-07-08.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 2017, Barry R. Harker, It’s Sunday in America ‎, →ISBN: ↩

  2. 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXII, in Romance and Reality. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 533: ↩

  3. c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i], page 265: ↩

  4. 1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros: A Romance, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, page 33: ↩

  5. 1932, D. H. Lawrence, The Ship of Death: ↩

  6. 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, “In Which Becky Is Recognised by the Family”, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC, page 366: ↩

  7. 1904, Elizabeth von Arnim, The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen, MacMillan, published 1904: ↩

  8. 2018, Delphi Complete Works of R. S. Surtees (Illustrated) ↩

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