1. (as two words) A pot made of tin or tin-plate.
1772. T. Simpson, Vermin-Killer, 21. A pound of arsenick … put into a tin pot or kettle.
2. The pot of molten tin into which the sheet of iron is dipped in the manufacture of tin-plate.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 1253. The first rectangle in the range is the tin-pot.
1864. Strauss, etc., Eng. Workshops, 78. The first pot, called the tinman’s-pan.… The second pot, called the tin-pot.
1880. Flower, Hist. Trade Tin, xiii. 170. From the palm-oil bath by means of tongs, the sheets are passed by the tinman … to the tin pot, which is full of molten tin, and here they remain to soak for a period of 20 minutes.
3. Short for tin-pot bell: see 4.
1895. Miss E. P. Thompson, Veil of Liberty, ix. 176. The … church next door began to clink its miserable tin-pot—it had once had a good set of bells, but it had felt it prudent to give these to the nation.
4. attrib. Resembling or suggesting a tin pot in quality or sound; hence contemptuously, without solid worth, of inferior quality, shabby, poor, cheap.
1865. Slang Dict., s.v., ‘He plays a tin-pot game,’ i. e., a low or shabby one. Billiards.
1875. W. Morris, in Mackail, Life (1899), I. 309. Within sound of those tin-pot bells.
1894. Kipling, Light that Failed, iii. To the tin-pot music of a Western waltz the naked Zanzibari girls danced furiously.
1897. Daily News, 23 March, 6/7. Made a sacrifice to some miserable tin-pot politicians. Ibid. (1907), 4 Oct. Some tin-pot comic opera receives praise from the very same critics.
1926. Bakersfield Morn. Echo, 20 Feb., 4/1. Today the world is afforded occasional opportunities to observe Italy’s tin-pot dictator [Mussolini] in eruption.
Hence Tin-potter Naut. slang, see quot.; Tin-pottery, tin pots or tin-ware collectively.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Tin-potter, a galley skulker, shamming Abraham.
1850. Scargill, Eng. Sketch-Bk., 7. Dealing in grocery, drapery, and tin-pottery.
