Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A thin, pliable sheet of aluminum or of tin-lead alloy, used as a protective wrapping.
Wiktionary
- n. a thin, pliable sheet of tin or an alloy of tin and lead, used as a protective wrapping
- n. aluminium foil
WordNet 3.0
- n. foil made of tin or an alloy of tin and lead
Etymologies
- Blend of tin and foil (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Nice fresh Alaskan salmon on the grill in tinfoil, drizzled with soy sauce, sprinkled with lemon pepper, topped with elephant garlic and fresh slices of lemon ... oh yes, half the lemon is squeezed all over it, other spices you may see fit.”
“Or freshly caught trout wrapped in tinfoil and thrown in the fire when you are camping (and hungry).”
“How about I give you $2.50 and you wrap me in tinfoil?”
“Or where we wonder if his tinfoil is wound too tight?”
Think Progress » Ed Schultz Tells Robert Gibbs He’s ‘Full Of Sh*t’ And ‘You’re Losing Your Base’
“I thought he was just covering the inside bottom of the remote in tinfoil, rather than making a reflective backboard. brianhatch”
Use Tinfoil To Boost Your Remote Control’s Range | Lifehacker Australia
“I'm so glad I cornered the market in tinfoil well before the hats came out.”
“Wired News has a nice little gallery up from the Alien Abduction festival on Toronto's Queen Street West last week -- local merchants offered classes in tinfoil beanie manufacture, and "probing 101" (from the local sex-positive sex-shop).”
“I just wrapped the grip of my key in tinfoil to jam the transponder.”
“Kooks in tinfoil hats say things like, “But with your Neanderthal leader at the helm, we†™ re rapidly leaving civilization behind and are slumping back into some weird proto-fascist swamp.””
“A Washington man's apartment-sitter wrapped everything he owned in tinfoil while he was away:”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘tinfoil’.
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[Open] “What’s that on your head?”
Headgear: “anything worn on the head” (that isn’t part of the head). Hats are fine, but for a more detailed, wider selection of fashionable hats in all colors and sizes, please see Reese Tee’s li...
goggles, wig, headdress, cap, hackamore, halter, bridle, beanie, turban, hat, crown, chapeau and 126 more...
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EN-HU - important words for a HU inte...
Words only (I left out the expressions) from Geza Kerenyi's EN-HU interpreters' dictionary. Most of them pose some difficulty when interpreted between HU and EN in either or both directions.
abalone, abrasive, abstractionist, abstruse, abysmal, academia, accessibility, accessible, acclimate, accolade, accompanist, achiever and 1469 more...
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Oily
Words and phrases that have "oil" in them.
oil, oily, olive oil, crude oil, toil, boil, trefoil, foil, roil, broil, coil, soil and 70 more...
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so thin!
cotton, filmsy, tenuousic, rarenessly, gruelic, fila(orless)ment, gauzy, slimsy, amnionically, crepeilly, sliverishness, hairlineful and 34 more...
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NihonGoose's Words
colander, doily, nacre, mandible, carapace, glutinous, penumbral, skein, mollify, colloquial, sanguine, chagrin and 118 more...
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What, another list?
ravishing, ravenous, pronk, brinksmanship, jaspe, mottle, chasm, testy, temperament, ponder, personally, phantom and 206 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, T
torquate, thalassocracy, toothsome, travois, tempestuous, tone, tincture, tripwire, tether, trill, tenacious, travesty and 355 more...
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miscellanea
antimacassar, snootful, sessile, glagolitic, marrowsky, farrago, keel, calumny, rheum, talisman, tally, awry and 508 more...
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compounds
blatherskite, buckskin, fishmonger, hoarfrost, applesauce, moonshine, fiddlehead, snickerdoodle, lodestar, lifeblood, brainchild, starry-eyed and 17 more...
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magpie's delight
various trinkets and shiny objects
pearl, tinfoil, clean car, marble, string, quarter, monocle, button, pocket watch, cellophane, ribbon, bead and 22 more...
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mvaline's Words
emma, puddle, tinfoil, frugal, anthropomorphize, refreshing, scintillating, rarefied, kookaburra, flimsy, nifty, terrific and 26 more...
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Poetrie: Aquatic Nocturne
So I'm trying one of these.
Aquatic Nocturne
by Sylvia Plath
deep in liquid indigo
turquoise slivers
of dilute light
quiver in thin streaks
of b...gong, bronze, wan, blunt, shrewd, amble, adroit, elusive, spiral, wily, bulbous, lunar and 16 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for tinfoil.
reesetee I think you're safe, John, as long as you don't eat your hat. Jul 13, 2007
slumry Oh my gosh--hope you don't have any fillings, or you are in deep doodoo! Jul 13, 2007
john The real question is, which is the better hat material? You know, to protect you from the government rays?
Ohmygod... what if tinfoil hats protect you, and aluminum foil hats do *nothing at all*. Would explain the disappearance of tin foil, no?
Maybe I've been wearing this dumb hat for years for no purpose whatsoever. Jul 13, 2007
reesetee Oh, what the heck, arby--get that guy on Wordie and we'll duke it out. ;-) Jul 13, 2007
arby AND to add insult to injury, it's entirely possible that I am misremembering his position and he does not deny the existence of the word but merely its application to aluminum foil!! I'll have to ask. Jul 13, 2007
arby Small consolation - I'd rather be in the right minority than the wrong majority! - but thank you anyway :) Jul 13, 2007
slumry At least you are right in saying that you are not the only one who calls it that! Jul 13, 2007
arby Ack, he's right! (You are too.) Not that tinfoil is not a word but that tinfoil and aluminum foil are not the same. Wikipedia sez (under aluminum foil):
Foil made from a thin leaf of tin was commercially available before the aluminium counterpart. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, tin foil was in common use, and some people continue to refer to the new product by the name of the old one. Tin foil is stiffer than aluminium foil. Jul 13, 2007
slumry In the past, lots of people called it tinfoil. I had assumed that "tinfoil" referred to some earlier version of the foil we use. My guess that tinfoil has more to do with generations than regions, but I could be wrong. Jul 13, 2007
arby My BF refuses to admit that this word is real. I'm like, "Aluminum foil, tinfoil, get it?" but no, he's never heard it called that by anyone except me. I wonder if it's a regional thing? California vs. Southern (I'm from NYC but my parents are from VA and TN). Jul 13, 2007