tinpot

tinpot is the alternative spelling of tin-pot.

Meaning of tin-pot

tin-pot (not comparable)

(figuratively, informal) Of inferior quality; shoddy.
- It was a great comfort to turn from that chap to my influential friend, the battered, twisted, ruined, tin-pot steamboat.1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I
Synonyms:

ass, bad, base, below par, bottom-shelf, BTEC, bum, cheap, cheap and nasty, cheapshit
(figuratively, informal) Insignificant or minor, especially in an amusing and petty manner.
- Jim Hacker: Why are we having an official visit from this tin-pot little African country? / Sir Humphrey Appleby: Minister, I beg of you not to refer to it as a tin-pot little African country. It's an LDC.1980 March 3, Antony Jay, Jonathan Lynn, “The Official Visit”, in Yes, Minister, season 1, episode 2, spoken by Jim Hacker and Humphrey Appleby (Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne)
Synonyms:

base, contemptible, floccinaucinihilipilificatious, foolish, for the birds, futile, frivolous, idle, ignorable, immaterial

Tinpot

A locality in the Bega Valley council area and the Eurobodalla council area, south-eastern New South Wales, Australia.

plural	tinpots

What does tinpot mean?: Tinpot means a locality in the Bega Valley council area and the Eurobodalla council area, south-eastern New South Wales, Australia.
What is tinpot the alternative spelling of?: Tinpot is the alternative spelling of tin-pot.
What part of speech is tinpot?: Tinpot is a proper noun.

Adapted from Wiktionary: tinpot (page history and authors); Tinpot (page history and authors); tin-pot (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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