Pinhole

//ˈpɪnˌhoʊl// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A small hole, of a size that could have been made by a pin
  2. 2
    a small puncture that might have been made by a pin wordnet
  3. 3
    The aperture in a pinhole camera or camera obscura

    "These [the eyes of the nautilus] are the simplest eyes of any large living animal -- lensless 'pinholes' that project a hazy and rather dim image onto its retinas."

  4. 4
    A port left unprotected by a firewall to allow a particular application to gain access to a service.
  5. 5
    A clipping of pinhole eye, which refers to the compact eye structure associated with intense tropical cyclones.
Verb
  1. 1
    To form one or more pinholes in. transitive

Synonyms

All synonyms
air holeaperturearmholeblowholebullet-holebunghole

Example

More examples

"You can build a pinhole camera with a shoe box."

Etymology

From pin + hole.

Related phrases

pinhole camerapinhole chertpinhole detectorpinhole glassespinhole grasspinhole pupil

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.