pachinko

plural pachinkos · alternative pachinco

1. countableuncountableA mechanical ball-dropping game similar to pinball, popular in Japan.

   Two teen-age boys, after selling their personal belongings to play pachinko, sold their blood to "gamble.”

   1952 October 12, Ray Falk, “Pinball Panic Over Japan: ‘Pachinko’ is a zany game; its havoc is nation-wide”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 28 Aug 2025

   2 more examples

   The rain kept up, falling along Harajuku, beading on her plastic jacket, the children of Tokyo trooping past the famous boutiques in white loafers and clingwrap capes, until she'd stood with him in the midnight clatter of a pachinko parlor and held his hand like a child.

   1984, William Gibson, Neuromancer (Sprawl; book 1), New York, N.Y.: Ace Books, →ISBN, page 8

   Snow filled her mouth. She caromed off things she never saw, tumbling through a cluttered canyon like a steel marble falling through pins in a pachinko machine.

   2012 December 26, John Branch, “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 14 Nov 2013

present singular third person pachinkos · participle present pachinkoing · participle past pachinkoed · past pachinkoed · alternative pachinco

1. intransitiveTo tumble down through a series of obstacles.

   She drizzled them in slowly and listened to the susurration of the bolts pachinkoing their way through the refrigerators and fax machines, on their way to some illegal dump.

   2016, Alex Livingston, Glitch Rain