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The director of our English training institute told us that we must use pindrop instead of pindrop silence. I have searched on the internet to find out the correct way of using this word but I could only find the usage of pindrop silence.

Am I missing something here?

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    How are you trying to use these words? An example would show what you thought was or wasn't correct.
    – KillingTime
    Commented Nov 22, 2021 at 15:52
  • Note that in Lexico pin-drop isn't a noun but an adjective. Perhaps that is why your search for a 'pindrop' noun was fruitless.
    – Weather Vane
    Commented Nov 22, 2021 at 15:52
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    to hear a pin drop =idiomatic expression. It is an expression.
    – Lambie
    Commented Nov 22, 2021 at 15:53
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    An example sentence is needed, the director may have criticised "you could hear a pindrop silence" with the suggestion "you could hear a pin drop."
    – Weather Vane
    Commented Nov 22, 2021 at 16:04
  • I can't imagine any circumstance where I would use "pindrop" as a noun though I can imagine a literary or poetic use of "pindrop silence". Without full context it's difficult to know what the director is talking about. In the idiomatic sentence "You could hear a pin drop." "Pin drop" is a normal subject and verb relationship. What you can hear (metaphrically) is the sound of a pin falling to the floor. If the director had said "Don't use 'pindrop', it's not a word " I would have agreed with him but I can accept it more easily as an adjective than as a noun.
    – BoldBen
    Commented Nov 23, 2021 at 6:22

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I'm not familiar with "pindrop" as a single word, but there is a dictionary entry for the phrase "pindrop silence," including having "pindrop" as a single word. It is tagged as "Indian English." What I'm more used to, in UK and US English, is the more wordy idiom "[it was so quiet] you could have heard a pin drop." (Note, "pin drop" in this case is two words.)

Perhaps your teacher was directing you away from a usage that wouldn't be local to your context (unless you're specifically learning Indian usages). But I'm not aware of a usage that would use "pindrop," on its own, as an adjective or adverb (though, as noted in the comments, the hyphenated adjectival "pin-drop" could be readily understood).

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