bodkin

Etymology

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

noun

1. A small sharp pointed tool for making holes in cloth or leather.
2. 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. 2017, Barry R. Harker, It’s Sunday in America
3. A hairpin.
4. A dagger.
   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? 1932, D. H. Lawrence, The Ship of Death
5. A type of long thin arrowhead.
6. (printing) A sharp tool, like an awl, formerly used for pressing down individual type characters letters from a column or page in making corrections.

adv

1. Closely wedged between two people.
   to sit bodkin
   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. 1904, Elizabeth von Arnim, The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen, MacMillan, published 1904
   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. 2018, Delphi Complete Works of R. S. Surtees (Illustrated)