Pin·yin or pin·yin (p?n?y?n?, -y?n)n. A system for transcribing the pronunciation of the standard variety of Mandarin using the Roman alphabet, officially adopted by the People’s Republic of China in 1979. [Mandarin p?n y?n, to combine sounds into syllables, spell : p?n, to combine (from Middle Chinese pjiaj?) + y?n, sound, syllable (from Middle Chinese ?im).]American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.Pinyin (?p?n?j?n) n (Linguistics) a system of romanized spelling developed in China in 1958: used to transliterate Chinese characters into the Roman alphabetCollins English Dictionary ? Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014pin?yin (?p?n?y?n) n. (sometimes cap.) a system for transliterating Chinese into the Latin alphabet, introduced in 1958 and officially adopted by the People’s Republic of China in 1979. [