pinned

Pinned is the past participle of pin and is used as both a verb and an adjective to denote that something has been fastened, immobilized, or marked for special status. The sense of pinning ranges from physical fastening to conceptual or digital ones, depending on the context.

In hardware, textiles, and engineering, pins are slender fasteners used to secure materials, hold fabric in place for sewing, or join components. A fabric or garment described as pinned is temporarily held in place by pins. In mechanical engineering, a pinned joint uses a pin to connect two members, allowing rotation while maintaining alignment.

In sports, particularly wrestling and grappling, a pin refers to a move in which one contestant’s shoulders are held against the mat for a defined count, resulting in a pinfall. The term describes both the action and the resulting control of one competitor over the other during the exchange.

In computing, pinned memory or page-locked memory is a portion of RAM that is kept resident and not paged to disk, which can improve performance for high-speed I/O and DMA operations. CPU pinning or affinity involves binding a process or thread to a specific processor core or NUMA node to improve cache locality and predictability.

In online platforms and forums, a pinned post or thread is designated to remain at the top of a page to attract attention or provide important information. Pinned content typically remains visible regardless of newer posts appearing in the feed.

See also: pin, pinning.