piton
- n a metal spike with a hole for a rope; mountaineers drive it into ice or rock to use as a hold
- After an hour's work, he drove a piton into the rock, hooked a finger through the piton's eye and leaned dizzily backwards to search for a route above.
- Beautifully photographed in Switzerland, James Ramsey Ullman's Banner in the Sky has become a sort of alpine Huckleberry Finn, with James MacArthur as the main piton in a .
- Siegert and his companions hammered in a piton every 3 ft.