Definition of "kingpin" []

• Sports The innermost or central pin in an arrangement of bowling pins. (noun)
• Sports See headpin. (noun)
• The most important person or element in an enterprise or system. (noun)
• See kingbolt. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Now it reminds me of a Jamie Oliver episode: Google, the Internet search kingpin, is conducting a huge search of its own: It is scouring the world for a pair of executive chefs."
• "Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producer in the world and is sometimes referred to as the kingpin of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)."
• "John Leland visits the set of Ridley Scott's American Gangster, "based on the real-life heroin kingpin Frank Lucas [Denzel Washington] and the detective-turned-prosecutor Richie Roberts [Russell Crowe]," and contemplates the evolution of the genre: "In a nation of immigrants, the movies pit audience sympathy for the new immigrant against fear of the unassimilated ethnic clan."