tinfoil
Americannoun
noun
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thin foil made of tin or an alloy of tin and lead
-
thin foil made of aluminium; used for wrapping foodstuffs
Usage
What is a tinfoil hat? Tinfoil hat is a shorthand for saying someone believes in conspiracy theories, is paranoid, or is crazy more generally.
Etymology
Origin of tinfoil
First recorded in 1425–75, tinfoil is from the late Middle English word tynfoile. See tin, foil 2
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.
But the remainder feels leftover — formless and aimless — like tinfoil stretched around a clunky, conventional mass.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 27, 2026
In 1905 Jacob Mohr, a German schizophrenic, believed that he was being targeted by an “oscillatory wave transmission device” and was found, on admission to hospital, to be wearing sheets of tinfoil under his clothes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
It requires little effort to arrange the group’s most unhinged statements into a cornucopia of lunacy, surpassed in recent memory only by the tinfoil conspiracism of QAnon.
From Salon ● Jan. 20, 2026
During Monday’s hearing, he complained that mainstream news media, including the Washington Post, had portrayed him and his allies “like we have a tinfoil hat on our heads.”
From Slate ● Dec. 19, 2025
She gave Nazario a small packet of food wrapped in tinfoil.
From "Bodega Dreams" by Ernesto Quinonez
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
