Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Alternative spelling of tin-pot.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective inferior (especially of a country's leadership)

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Revolutions in tinpot republics don’t solve problems; they exacerbate them.

    Matthew Yglesias » Carter on Gaza 2009

  • Revolutions in tinpot republics don’t solve problems; they exacerbate them.

    Matthew Yglesias » Carter on Gaza 2009

  • As if we lived in some kind of tinpot theocracy, Mr. MacAskill intoned that Megrahi would be judged by "a higher authority."

    The Lockerbie Bomber and Scotland's Disgrace 2010

  • A blog which quickly descends, in its comment moderation policy, into the kind of tinpot authoritarianism that the likes of Guido and Dale are just itching to catch a whiff off.

    Paranoia, paranoia… Alix Mortimer 2009

  • A blog which quickly descends, in its comment moderation policy, into the kind of tinpot authoritarianism that the likes of Guido and Dale are just itching to catch a whiff off.

    Could local be the new British? Alix Mortimer 2009

  • "ROGUE GUNNER": Admiral: 'tinpot' armed services skip to main

    Admiral: 'tinpot' armed services Rogue Gunner 2006

  • The most effective immediate assistance Canada could give in this war would be to build, equip and man a thousand "tinpot" trawlers and minesweepers and put them to work on our own eastern and western approaches and on the eastern and western approaches to the British Isles.

    War With the Blinds Down 1939

  • But, if we must keep out of the Baltic because we are not yet strong enough to go in, and if our merchant ships must run the hazards of bubble mines and magnetic mines and pocket battleships and submarine's torpedoes for another hundred days and another hundred days-then I heartily endorse W.J. Stewart, M. P.P.'s condemnation of sneers at Canada's "tinpot" navy.

    War With the Blinds Down 1939

  • There is first the enfranchisement of your steaming limbs from gaiter and shooting boot, buckskin and flannel; then the steeping of your sodden head in the pellucid depth, with bubaline snortings and expirations of satisfaction; then, as the first cold stream from the "tinpot" courses down your spine, what electric thrills start from a dozen ganglia and flush your whole nervous system with new life!

    Behind the Bungalow Edward Hamilton Aitken 1880

  • It is usual in tinpot dictatorships for past leaders to be harried from scenes of public prestige.

    A cheap and cruel snub to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown | Observer editorial 2011

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