row of pins en · NOUN
Etymology
From the disposable rows of pins used in sewing.
Meanings
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(dated, idiomatic, in the negative) An insignificant thing, a whit.
As far as the admissions tax is concerned, it doesn’t amount to a row of pins anyway.
1963 October 14, John McFarland, Revenue Act of 1963: Hearings Before the Committee on Finance, United States Senate, Eighty-Eighth Congress, Fifth Session, on H.R. 8363 […] , page 608:He knew that big nations did not care a row of pins for small nations, but only used them as pawns, and he knew that the role of a pawn in a game is, too often, to be taken.
1956, Carlile Aylmer Macartney, October Fifteenth: A History of Modern Hungary, 1929–1945, volume 1, page 109:“[…] they wouldn’t let us have even a row of pins without the money for ’em—no, not if we was to drop down dead for want of bread in their shops.”
1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor: A Cyclopaedia […] , volume 1, page 358: