tail-pin

Updated: May 28, 2025

It had sunk almost perpendicularly till the iron-plate called "the tail-pin," by which the barrel is made fast to the stock by a screw, had descended through the palate, carrying with it the screw, one extremity of which had forced itself into the right nostril, where it was discernible externally, whilst the headed end lay in contact with his tongue.

Sir James Emerson Tennent - Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon