piñata
Americannoun
plural
piñatasnoun
Etymology
Origin of piñata
1885–90; < Spanish: literally, pot < Italian pignatta, probably derivative of dial. pigna pinecone (from the pot's shape) < Latin pīnea, noun use of feminine of pīneus of the pine tree; pine 1, -eous
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Advocates gave a “know your rights” workshop and Amalfitano led a piñata bashing, what the store owner called “a communal form of catharsis,” encouraging students to let out pent-up emotions in a safe way.
From Los Angeles Times
Contemporary culture offers “power, wealth, and fame” as substitutes, but there “doesn’t seem to be enough mattering to go around” in these forms of “exclusionary salvation,” so most people must scramble for crumbs “like children beneath a piñata.”
Repeatedly, the Mexican president has insisted that her country would be “nobody’s piñata.”
From Los Angeles Times
The admiral wiggled and kicked, which made him swing wildly, like a piñata in the midst of being beaten.
From Literature
The Dodgers somehow concealed their piñata of a bullpen in the three previous rounds of the postseason, but that bullpen is now catching up with them.
From Los Angeles Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
