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
For ten minutes he played, bringing in Zelter's little tune again and again, and then Zelter in a voice of pretended wrath cried, "Cease that tin-pan drumming and play something worth while."
From Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians by Elbert Hubbard
"Then she busts out a-laughin', an' says: "'Why, that old tin-pan!
From The Spinner's Book of Fiction by Various
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.
