tin-pan
Americanadjective
Etymology
Origin of tin-pan
An Americanism dating back to 1840–50
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.
No flash in tin-pan alley, it was a typical troubadour's success — quick, dramatic, amazingly profitable.
From Time Magazine Archive
After blastoff, the fictional narrator who has combined the "televisualized" Freud, the tin-pan Trotsky and the Shakespearean Star Trek starts to muse.
From Time Magazine Archive
Once she had the tin-pan band on, Mrs. Billups went over the alphabet.
From "Out of My Mind" by Sharon M. Draper
In this case the bees took the lead; the man with his tin-pan music kept the rear, and was soon at a respectful distance.
From Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained by Quinby, M. (Moses)
They appealed to some tin-pan rhythmic sense in the Judge’s oratorical mind.
From In the Heart of a Fool by White, William Allen
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
