The Collaborative International Dictionary
Bodkin \Bod"kin\ (b[o^]d"k[i^]n), n. [OE. boydekyn dagger; of uncertain origin; cf. W. bidog hanger, short sword, Ir. bideog, Gael. biodag.]
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A dagger. [Obs.]
When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin.
--Shak. (Needlework) An implement of steel, bone, ivory, etc., with a sharp point, for making holes by piercing; a stiletto; an eyeleteer.
(Print.) A sharp tool, like an awl, used for picking out letters from a column or page in making corrections.
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A kind of needle with a large eye and a blunt point, for drawing tape, ribbon, etc., through a loop or a hem; a tape needle.
Wedged whole ages in a bodkin's eye.
--Pope. -
A kind of pin used by women to fasten the hair.
To sit, ride, or travel bodkin, to sit closely wedged between two persons. [Colloq.]
--Thackeray.
Usage examples of "to sit".
These chapters are right, now, in every detail, for they were rewritten under the immediate eye of William Hicks, who studied law part of a while in southwest Missouri thirty-five years ago and then came over here to Florence for his health and is still helping for exercise and board in Macaroni Vermicelli's horse-feed shed, which is up the back alley as you turn around the corner out of the Piazza del Duomo just beyond the house where that stone that Dante used to sit on six hundred years ago is let into the wall when he let on to be watching them build Giotto's campanile and yet always got tired looking as Beatrice passed along on her way to get a chunk of chestnut cake to defend herself with in case of a Ghibelline outbreak before she got to school, at the same old stand where they sell the same old cake to this day and it is just as light and good as it was then, too, and this is not flattery, far from it.