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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Pinch \Pinch\, verb (used with an object) [imp. & p. p. {Pinched}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Pinching}.] [F. pincer, probably fr. OD. pitsen to pinch; akin to G. pfetzen to cut, pinch; perhaps of Celtic origin. Cf. {Piece}.]
1. To press hard or squeeze between the ends of the fingers, between teeth or claws, or between the jaws of an instrument; to squeeze or compress, as between any two hard bodies.
2. to seize; to grip; to bite; -- said of animals. [Obs.]
He [the hound] pinched and pulled her down. --Chapman.
3. To plait. [Obs.]
Full seemly her wimple ipinched was. --Chaucer.
4. Figuratively: To cramp; to straiten; to oppress; to starve; to distress; as, to be pinched for money.
Want of room . . . pinching a whole nation. --Sir W. Raleigh.
5. To move, as a railroad car, by prying the wheels with a pinch. See {Pinch}, noun, 4.
6. To seize by way of theft; to steal; to lift. [Slang] --Robert Barr. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
7. to catch; to arrest (a criminal). [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
pinched
adjective
1: sounding as if the nose were pinched; "a whining nasal voice" [syn: {adenoidal}, {nasal}]
2: very thin especially from disease or hunger or cold; "emaciated bony hands"; "a nightmare population of gaunt men and skeletal boys"; "eyes were haggard and cavernous"; "small pinched faces"; "kept life in his wasted frame only by grim concentration" [syn: {bony}, {cadaverous}, {emaciated}, {gaunt}, {haggard}, {skeletal}, {wasted}]
3: not having enough money to pay for necessities [syn: {hard up}, {impecunious}, {in straitened circumstances(p)}, {penniless}, {penurious}]
4: as if squeezed uncomfortably tight; "her pinched toes in her pointed shoes were killing her"
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
83 Moby Thesaurus words for "pinched": attenuated, badly off, cadaverous, careworn, clamped, compressed, concentrated, condensed, consolidated, constricted, contracted, corpselike, cramped, desperate, distressed, down to bedrock, drawn, emacerated, emaciate, emaciated, embarrassed, feeling the pinch, haggard, hard pressed, hard up, hollow-eyed, ill off, impecunious, in Queer Street, in desperate straits, in extremis, in extremities, in narrow circumstances, in reduced circumstances, in straitened circumstances, jejune, knitted, land-poor, marantic, marasmic, narrow, nipped, on the edge, out of pocket, peaked, peaky, pinched-in, poor, poorly off, puckered, puny, pursed, reduced, short, short of cash, short of funds, short of money, shriveled, skeletal, solidified, sorely pressed, squeezed, starved, starveling, straitened, strangled, strangulated, strapped, tabetic, tabid, underfed, undernourished, unmoneyed, unprosperous, up against it, wasp-waisted, wasted, weazeny, withered, wizened, worn, wraithlike, wrinkled
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