tin

/tɪn/

tin noun: a malleable, ductile, metallic element, resistant to corrosion, with atomic number 50 and symbol Sn.

Image: Ondřej Mangl, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

tin (countable and uncountable, plural tins)

(uncountable) A malleable, ductile, metallic element, resistant to corrosion, with atomic number 50 and symbol Sn.
(metonymically) Iron or steel sheet metal that is coated with tin as an anticorrosion protectant.
- The roof was made of tin, which had been cut with tin snips.
Synonyms:

tinplate
(Commonwealth, UK, countable) An airtight container, made of tin-coated steel (called tinplate or tin), (formerly) tin, aluminium, or another metal, used to preserve food, or hold a liquid or some other product.
- a tin of baked beans; a tobacco tin; a tin of shoe polish
- Several tins of paint were needed to paint the house.
Synonyms:

can, tin can
(countable) A metal pan used for baking, roasting, storing food, etc.
- muffin tin
- roasting tin
(countable) The bottom part of the front wall, which is "out" if a player strikes it with the ball.
(dated, slang, uncountable) money, especially silver money.
- The father is a cotton lord, and they all have loads of tin, you know1844, Benjamin Disraeli, Coningsby
- When all your tin is gone and spent, / And you've not a mag for bread or rent1861, Philip William Perfitt, The Pathfinder, page 377
(slang, uncountable) computer hardware.

Adjective

tin (not comparable)

Made of tin.
Made of galvanised iron or built of corrugated iron.
- [I]n fact he was a big noise, literally, in the Baptist Chapel, known locally as the Tin Tab[ernacle] - whereas my family were 'church' and Uncle Ezekiel was an infidel at that.1939, George Orwell, Coming up for Air, London: Victor Gollancz
Made of aluminum.

Verb

tin (third-person singular simple present tins, present participle tinning, simple past and past participle tinned)

(transitive) To place into a metal can (ie. a tin; be it tin, steel, aluminum) in order to preserve.
(transitive) To cover with tin.
(transitive) To coat with solder, in preparation for soldering, to ensure a good solder joint
(transitive) To coat with solder, in order to consolidate braided wire, so as to make contact with all strands and reduce fragility of the fraying wire

Noun (2) capitalized: TIN

TIN (plural TINs)

(abbreviation, initialism, various countries) Initialism of taxpayer identification number.
- The AOTC and/or LLC cannot be claimed if the TIN is issued after the due date of the return (including extensions).2025 May, “The One, Big, Beautiful Bill”, in United States House Committee on Ways & Means, page 43

tin meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

tin in Hindi

element: त्रपु trapu
airtight container: टिन ṭin

tin in Tamil

element: தகரம் takaram

tin in Marathi

टिन, टीन

tin in Urdu

element: قَلْع qal'

More languagesFewer languages

tin in Bengali: টিন ṭin
tin in Telugu: టిన్
tin in Malayalam: വെളുത്തീയം veḷuttīyaṁ, തകരം takaraṁ
tin in Kannada: ತವರ tavara
tin in Punjabi: ਟੀਨ, ਟਿਨ, ਟਿੰਨ
tin in Gujarati: ટીન, ટિન
tin in Odia: ଟିନ୍, ଟିନ୍ |
tin in Assamese: ৰাং raṅ
tin in Nepali: टिन
tin in Tagalog: tinggaputi, lata
tin in Arabic: قَصْدِير m or قِصْدِير qaṣdīr, صفيح ṣafīḥ, قَصْدير gaṣdīr, قزدير qazdīr
tin in Malay: stanum, timah, tin, kupi
tin in Indonesian: timah, kaleng
tin in Persian: قَلْع ġal', اَرْزیز arziz, حَلَب halab, قوطی ġuti
tin in Thai: ดีบุก dii-bùk, กระป๋อง grà-bpɔ̌ng, ปี๊บ bpíip
tin in Vietnamese: thiếc, hộp
tin in Myanmar: သံဖြူ samhpru

Examples of tin in a sentence

empty tins, cans, and plastic containers are recycled in the blue bins.
And, indeed, after a tense round of rolling, shaping and filling delicate pastry dough, Rowan can’t even pull his overstuffed pies out of the tins without them bleeding and oozing fruit filling.2023 October 28, Ashlie D. Stevens, ““Great British Bake Off” shocks viewers with a dramatic double-elimination round”, in Salon:

All 40 example sentences with tin

Synonyms of tin

Forms of tin

Noun
plural	tins
plural	TINs
Verb
third-person singular present	tins
present participle	tinning
past participle	tinned
past	tinned

Past tense of tin: tinned

Plural of tin: tins

Origin of tin

From Middle English tin, from Old English tin, from Proto-West Germanic *tin, from Proto-Germanic *tiną.

Words formed from tin

Phrases with tin

70 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with tin

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about tin

What does tin mean?: Tin means a malleable, ductile, metallic element, resistant to corrosion, with atomic number 50 and symbol Sn.
What is tin in Hindi?: Tin in Hindi is त्रपु (trapu), टिन (ṭin). See Tin meaning in Hindi.
How do you use tin in a sentence?: empty tins, cans, and plastic containers are recycled in the blue bins.
What part of speech is tin?: Tin can be a noun, an adjective or a verb.
How do you pronounce tin?: Tin is pronounced /tɪn/.
What is the plural of tin?: The plural of tin is tins.

Words near tin in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: tin (page history and authors); TIN (page history and authors); tin (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tin (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tin (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tin (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tin (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tin (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-tin.ogg, En-tin.ogg.

Cite this entry: “tin.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tin. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.