How to Use pincushion in a Sentence

pincushion

noun
  • Even his dahlias, plump like pincushions in plumes of white, purple and pink, took home first prize.
    — Jacob Bogage, Washington Post, 9 Sep. 2023
  • By the time she’s done, my palms are black and blue and look like a pincushion, with neat little rows of red dots.
    — Amy Poeppel, New York Times, 17 Apr. 2020
  • The dog’s face looked like a pincushion, with some 500 spines protruding from her face, paws and body.
    — Ed Yong, Discover Magazine, 11 Dec. 2012
  • At night, the sky is incredibly clear, a pincushion studded with millions of stars.
    — WSJ, 9 Mar. 2021
  • The lens shows some inward pincushion distortion and, at wider apertures, a vignette.
    — PC Magazine, 8 Apr. 2025
  • These styles have a similar pincushion shape but, instead of spikes, have several holes on top for placing stems.
    — Grace Haynes, Southern Living, 20 Mar. 2021
  • The round pincushion flowers draw hummingbirds, butterflies and other fliers in late spring, then give way to fruits that feed birds.
    — Paul Cappiello, The Courier-Journal, 16 Apr. 2021
  • Flowerheads feature compact domes of tiny greenish-white flowers that form a pincushion-like center.
    — Judy Nauseef, Better Homes & Gardens, 11 May 2026
  • Florist’s Pink’ is the richest pink, opening up an entirely new color spectrum for pincushion lovers.
    — Earl Nickel, San Francisco Chronicle, 13 Apr. 2018
  • At longer focal lengths, the optics show the pincushion effect (an inward curve) without corrections.
    — PCMAG, 16 May 2024
  • The optics show barrel distortion at 10mm and the pincushion effect at 18mm.
    — PCMAG, 2 Dec. 2024
  • That last group includes a manual barrel and pincushion slider, along with a checkbox for Defringe.
    — PCMAG, 5 Feb. 2024
  • The second plant was Navarretia mellita, or the honeyscented pincushion plant.
    — Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 4 Mar. 2016
  • Delicate paper blooms in light cream or blush look incredible on their own in a stoneware vase or paired with unexpected textures like a couple of pincushion blooms.
    — Kristin Guy, Sunset Magazine, 9 May 2024
  • Without correction, the optics show dark edges at the maximum aperture, as well as minor pincushion distortion at longer focal lengths.
    — PCMAG, 6 June 2024
  • So my legs became sacrificial pincushions.
    — Joan Meiners, AZCentral.com, 10 Nov. 2025
  • As for the pincushion plant, some indifferent animal (probably a jackrabbit) likes to bite off the entire flowering heads—spikes and all.
    — Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 4 Mar. 2016
  • As June, progresses, the flowers start to peak in the foothills, providing pops of color as plants like the pincushion cactus, wild iris and mountain mahogany begin to bloom.
    — Dawn Wilson, The Denver Post, 23 July 2024
  • Below the artwork, fresh plantings of pincushion protea flowers in a rainbow of colors dot a linear garden, brightening up a path students and teachers will walk every day.
    — Karen Billing, San Diego Union-Tribune, 3 June 2025
  • In wet winters, the valleys beyond town awaken in color as sand verbena, desert sunflower, evening primrose and pincushion gather in brief, luminous blooms across the desert floor.
    — Josh Jackson, Los Angeles Times, 7 Apr. 2026
  • However, both in-camera and Adobe corrections go a bit too far and introduce some pincushion distortion, an effect that causes straight lines to bow inward.
    — PCMAG, 6 Jan. 2025
  • The lens relies on digital corrections to compensate for some slight pincushion distortion and a vignette at maximum aperture.
    — PC Magazine, 8 June 2025
  • The sixth graders created an infomercial to share with every Ashley Falls classroom and each grade level voted on a pincushion color for the garden.
    — Karen Billing, San Diego Union-Tribune, 3 June 2025
  • Scutellosaurus, found in the roughly 200-million-year-old rock of the Navajo Nation, was not a big, four-on-the-floor pincushion like some of its later cousins.
    — Riley Black, Smithsonian Magazine, 31 May 2022
  • And also, the months of lockdown that may have realigned our priorities away from office conflicts and toxic relationships crystallized how noxious youth sports have become for those pincushion refs.
    — Washington Post, 6 Dec. 2021
  • The lens shows a little bit of pincushion distortion at longer focal lengths in Raw format, but in-camera corrections squash the issue for JPGs and movies.
    — Jim Fisher, PC Magazine, 13 May 2026
  • Black / Brown Chocolate cosmos, pincushion plant, amaranth, fiddleheads, and agonis are all incredible together—a bit moody, yes, but not too somber.
    — Heather Arndt Anderson, Sunset Magazine, 12 Feb. 2020
  • Decked out for war by costume designer Linda Cho, Wong carries face mask-shooting guns and wears a bandolier of thread spools, a giant pair of scissors strapped kitana-style to her back and pincushion armbands.
    — Pam Kragen, San Diego Union-Tribune, 26 Sep. 2022
  • Stony Brook could have chosen to place its center on the western edge, across from the Statue of Liberty, with lower Manhattan’s pincushion over in the corner of the panorama.
    — Developing Governors Island, Curbed, 11 May 2023
  • But the collection that captivated many editors was a limited selection of designs based on the pincushion found on the wrists of les petite mains, the seamstresses who excel at couture needlework in the atelier’s workrooms.
    — Laurie Brookins, The Hollywood Reporter, 10 Apr. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'pincushion.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: