Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The game of bowls played with ten pins or men in a long alley. The players strive with three or fewer bowls of the ball to knock down all the pins.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun United States A game resembling ninepins, but played with ten pins. See
ninepins .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A game, a form of
bowling , played with tenpins as the target. - noun Plural form of
tenpin .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun bowling down an alley at a target of ten wooden pins
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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They went down like tenpins, fell over each other in heaps.
Chapter 15 2010
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But the two men battled like fiends incarnate; they toppled them like tenpins.
"Master Control" by Harl Vincent, part 5 Johnny Pez 2010
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After your second try, it would sweep everything away, like the Grim Reaper, and then install a pristine set of tenpins, all resurrected.
Learning to Die in Miami Carlos Eire 2010
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A minion, or mook, is an opponent designed to be one of those guys that goes down like tenpins in the movies.
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A kid from the S.O. challenged President Obama to a game of tenpins.
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They charged up the stream, scattering the Germans like tenpins.
LEVIATHAN MR. SCOTT WESTERFELD 2009
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They charged up the stream, scattering the Germans like tenpins.
LEVIATHAN MR. SCOTT WESTERFELD 2009
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Moody's sees 14% of corporate bonds defaulting - an all-time high figure since it began keeping records, and it's likely the number will rise as the global crisis deepens and companies start falling like tenpins.
Lurching Toward Gomorrah: More Signs of An Unstoppable Economic Meltdown 2008
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I've gone into graveyards after hours, descended into dark cellars with naught but a Zippo lighter, crossed Central Park at night and faced multiple attackers only to scatter them like tenpins... but I have an abiding fear of Chloe Sevigny's teeth.
A mouth full of teeth Arbogast 2008
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But the Illinois supreme court, for one, was politically conservative, judicially activist, and intoxicated with constitutionality; in one period, labor laws fell like tenpins.
A History of American Law Lawrence M. Friedman 1985
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