A
thumb tack (North American English) or
push pin is a short
nail or
pin used to fasten items to a wall or board for display and intended to be inserted by hand, generally without the assistance of tools. A variety of names are used to refer to different designs intended for various purpose. Thumb tack and push pin are both sometimes compounded (
thumbtack or
pushpin) or hyphenated (
thumb-tack or
push-pin). Thumb tacks made of
brass,
tin or
iron may be referred to as
brass tacks,
brass pins,
tin tacks or
iron tacks, respectively. These terms are particularly used in the
idiomatic expression
to come (or
get)
down to brass (or otherwise)
tacks, meaning to consider basic facts of a situation.
Drawing pin or
drawing-pin refers to thumb tacks used to hold drawings on
drawing boards.
Map pin or
map tack refers to thumb tacks used to mark locations on a
map and to hold the map in place.