tin, noun

Origin:
EnglishShow more Special sense of general English.
colloquial
Corrugated iron, used either for roofing, or for the walls of houses. Also attributive. See also blik-huis, zinc.
1897 R.S.S. Baden-Powell Matabele Campaign 10 (Pettman)Into Mafeking? Well, there’s a little tin (corrugated iron) house and a goods’ shed to form the station.
1897 E. Edwards Journey through S. Afr. 48 (Jeffreys)Kimberley struck me as a very peculiarly built town, being chiefly composed of buildings into whose construction corrugated iron largely entered;..it would not be out of place to refer to Kimberley as a ‘tin town’.
1913 C. Pettman Africanderisms 503Tin house, A house the exterior of which is composed entirely of corrugated iron.
1964 M.G. McCoy Informant, Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha), Eastern CapeHe, if you please, feels humiliated at having to live under a tin roof.
1969 M.W. Spilhaus Doorstep-Baby 115It’s a big sprawling house with a tin roof — corrugated iron, you know. We call them tin roofs.
1991 Frontline May 5They see a person staying in a tin house, they take chances by taking for granted that the home is not well-protected traditionally.
Corrugated iron, used either for roofing, or for the walls of houses. Also attributive.
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colloquial
timeously, adverbadv.ting, nounn.
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