hairpin

[ hair-pin ]

/ ˈhɛərˌpɪn /

a slender U-shaped piece of wire, shell, etc., used by women to fasten up the hair or hold a headdress.

(of a road, curve in a road, etc.) sharply curved back, as in a U shape: a hairpin turn.

Origin of hairpin

First recorded in 1770–80; hair + pin

Carrey sings: "You're a big, big man with a little bitty gland, so you need something bigger with a hairpin trigger."

"Hee-Haw": Jim Carrey Mocks Gun Lovers & Charlton Heston In Spoof |Anna Klassen |March 25, 2013 |DAILY BEAST
“I never unplug,” says Edith Zimmerman, editor of The Hairpin.

Seven Things to Do on National Day of Unplugging |Sam Schlinkert |March 1, 2013 |DAILY BEAST
He noticed it, saw a hairpin and two nickles and a card or two.

Stubble |George Looms
He kept his accounts rigorously, entering even the cost of repairing a hairpin for a ward.

Washington and his Comrades in Arms |George Wrong

The clicking ceased with sudden abruptness, and she prodded the carriage of the machine viciously with a hairpin.

Masters of the Wheat-Lands |Harold Bindloss
From "hairpin" to "hairpin" we went, these curves so sharp that at first it seemed impossible to make them without backing.

Europe from a Motor Car |Russell Richardson
Then—it was the least significant of trivialities—she plucked a hairpin from her hair, and began to button her glove.

The Man Who Was Good |Leonard Merrick

hairpin

/ (ˈhɛəˌpɪn) /

a thin double-pronged pin used by women to fasten the hair

(modifier) (esp of a bend in a road) curving very sharply