tank town
Americannoun
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a town where trains stop to take on a supply of water.
-
any small, unimportant, or uninteresting town.
Etymology
Origin of tank town
An Americanism dating back to 1910–15
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
They both tell the story of a good ole boy leading his small-top troupe from one tank town to another, juggling dreams of success and threats of eviction, extortion and worse.
From Time Magazine Archive
Life in and around their pelagic tank town is the subject of this eerie, colorful documentary by Jacques-Yves Cousteau, a successor to his awesome epic, The Silent World.
From Time Magazine Archive
Without air conditioning, explains a new Texan, Houston would have remained a torpid tank town, and never made it to the status of a big city.
From Time Magazine Archive
In 1940 Las Vegas was a scraggly tank town with a tumbleweed economy.
From Time Magazine Archive
I've pulled the Washington on tank town weeklies, trimmed boiler plate on all-home-print, and attained the eminence of space writer on county seat dailies.
From Thirty by Howard Vincent O'Brien
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
