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  1. tain love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A type of paper-thin tin plate.
  2. n. Tinfoil used as a backing for mirrors.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A thin plate; a tagger; tin-foil for mirrors.

Wiktionary

  1. n. obsolete Thin tin plate
  2. n. obsolete Tin foil for mirrors.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. Thin tin plate; also, tin foil for mirrors.

Etymologies

  1. Old English tein, teyne; compare Icelandic teinn a twig. (Wiktionary)
  2. French, alteration of étain, tin, from Late Latin stannum; see stannic. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “The essence of Whacky Br*tain is that a knife is a tool for a form of free expression that is misunderstood by the population at large and the reactionary media, and police officers merely the nasty men and women who seek to deny Br*tain’s troubled youth that avenue for the inner self.”

    You Couldn’t Make It Up. « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG

  • “Also called the tain proper cell metabolism and tissue health. levels in blueberries are particularly high.”

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows

  • “Yet 'tain't being dead -- it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;”

    literature

  • “Bo weevil told the farmer that "I 'tain't got ticket fare",”

    Charley Patton Lyrics

  • “Jail house ain't no plaything, b'lieve me, 'tain't no lie”

    Blind Arthur Blake lyrics

  • “As for where you are moving-'tain't none of my bidnuss nohow!”

    lull, with schrapnel

  • “Meanwhile, 'tain't fit night out for man nor beast.”

    The time is out of joint...

  • “I wish I had a home I could really call my own to ask you to, but 'tain't never been so I could.”

    The Passing of Sister Barsett

  • “But the Kuklos ought to train 'em better, you know; 'tain't natural not to stare when a lunatic cuts loose in public.”

    Flashman and the angel of the lord

  • “Even more nerve-racking was the sight of the moun'tain's cone-shaped summit rising steeply away to their left.”

    Emperor of Ansalon

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Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘tain’.

Comments

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  • rolig Nice citation - and what a great word! It was new to me. Dec 22, 2008

  • knitandpurl "The sidewalks were gray and uneven, and the sky looked like a mirror without a tain, the place where everything should have been reflected but where, in the end, nothing was."
    -"Meeting with Enrique Lihn" by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Chris Andrews, in the New Yorker, Dec 22 and 29, 2008, pp 80-81 Dec 22, 2008

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‘tain’ has been looked up 7533 times, loved by 1 person, added to 10 lists, commented on 2 times, and has a Scrabble score of 4.