- 1
A bodkin is a long, thick needle with a blunt tip, not a sharp one. You use it to push tape, ribbon, or elastic through a hem or a , where a pointed needle would snag or stab you. So it is a -and-mending tool, but it does not stitches. The word sounds a little old-fashioned now; many people just say 'that blunt needle for elastic'. Though actually, the older meaning was a dagger: a small, slim stabbing knife. You still meet that sense in old plays — Hamlet talks of a bare bodkin, meaning a dagger. Same word, two lives: the pointed weapon came first; the blunt tool borrowed the shape and the name. In ordinary modern English, if a shop sells you a bodkin, they mean the blunt needle.
穿帶針、鈍頭長針
組成From Middle English boydekin, which meant 'dagger'. The ending -kin is an old 'little' suffix. The first part, boyde or boide, is unclear; it may be Celtic, but that is a guess. Scots has botkin and boitkin with the same meaning.
原始詞典資料8 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
Bodkinname
- 1
A surname originating as a patronymic.
bodkinnoun/ˈbɒdkɪn/
- 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.
- 3
A hairpin.
- A rich, flushed colour—large black eyes—teeth that shone from their brilliant whiteness—a slender shape—and most minute feet, in such little shoes of Cordova leather—a silver chain round her neck, to which hung a medal of the Madonna—a dark-brown boddice and short skirt, relieved by a lacing of scarlet riband—long black hair, bound in one large plait round the head, and fastened by a silver bodkin.
- 4
A dagger.
- When he himſelfe might his Quietus make / With a bare Bodkin?
- And he smote Corinius on his shaven jowl with the dice box, calling him cheat and mangy rascal, whereupon Corinius drew forth a bodkin to smite him in the neck withal; […]
- 5
A type of long thin arrowhead.
- 6
mediaprintingpublishingA sharp tool, like an awl, formerly used for pressing down individual type characters (e.g. letters) from a column or page in making corrections.
bodkinadv/ˈbɒdkɪn/
- 1
Closely wedged between two people.
- to sit bodkin
- He's too big to travel bodkin between you and me.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。