care a pin

English

Verb

care a pin (third-person singular simple present cares a pin, present participle caring a pin, simple past and past participle cared a pin)

  1. (informal, dated, chiefly in the negative) To care for something, to have interest or concern for something or someone.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:care
    • 1892, Grant Allen, The Duchess of Powysland‎[1], Chatto & Windus, pages 139–140:
      It's such a ridiculous position for a man to have to assume—all that sighing and love-song making about a woman you don't really care a pin for.
    • 1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula, Chartwell Books, published 2024, →ISBN, page 102:
      "Bother them all! I don't care a pin about them."
    • 1922, Henry Ford, Samuel Crowther, My Life and Work, Garden City, New York: Garden City Publishing Company, Inc., →OCLC, page 259:
      Management has been lazy, too—management has found it easier to hire an additional five hundred men than to so improve its methods that one hundred men of the old force could be released to other work. The public was paying, and business was booming, and management didn't care a pin.
    • 1953, Alison Lyle, Hazardous Fortune‎[2], Staples Press, page 129:
      How did people manage in London? No one to ask, no signposts, no one who cared a pin whether you got to St Pancras or not.
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