linchpin

Once the linchpin of the high-tech boom of the 1990s, Intel has plainly lost its mojo.

The trees are also a linchpin of the Mojave Desert ecosystem.

Still, Muncy figures to be a linchpin in the Dodgers’ long-term potential at the plate — with his recovery growing ever-steadily in importance as the rest of the lineup flounders in his wake.

There's no looking past captain and linchpin Girelli, who produced two great finishes against Norway.

The two pieces of legislation, Assembly Bill 130 and Senate Bill 131, were linchpins in the approval of a proposed $320-billion annual state budget deal; the governor’s signature was conditional on their passage.