Word.ws English Dictionary

tinhorn

tinhorn adjective: cheap, inferior; pretentious.

Adjective

tinhorn (comparative more tinhorn, superlative most tinhorn)

  1. (US) Cheap, inferior; pretentious.

Noun

tinhorn (plural tinhorns)

  1. (US) A contemptible or pretentious person, especially one who gambles for low stakes.
    • “[…] Them rich fellers, they don't make no bad breaks with their money. They watch it all th' time b'cause they know blame well there ain't hardly room fer their feet fer th' pikers an' tin-horns an' thimble-riggers what are layin' fer 'em. […]”1899, Stephen Crane, chapter 1, in Twelve O'Clock
    • I'm to deliver this treaty, signed by Secretary General Tanduk Timah himself. Heh. 'Tanduk Timah' in Bahasa Malay means 'Tin Horn.' How apt.2009 February 12, Sandy Sandfort, Scott Bieser, Lee Oaks, “Escape from Terra”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)

Forms of tinhorn

Adjective
comparativemore tinhorn
superlativemost tinhorn
alternative formtin-horn
Noun
pluraltinhorns

Origin of tinhorn

From tin + horn, from gambling.

Questions about tinhorn

What does tinhorn mean?
Tinhorn means cheap, inferior; pretentious.
What part of speech is tinhorn?
Tinhorn can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near tinhorn in the dictionary

  1. tinhats
  2. tinhatter
  3. tinhatters
  4. tinhattery
  5. tinhatting
  6. tinhorn
  7. tinhorns
  8. Tinia
  9. Tinian
  10. Tinicum
  11. tinidazole

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tinhorn (page history and authors). 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.

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