Advertisement
Advertisement
tin god
[ tin god ]
noun
- a self-important, dictatorial person in a position of authority, such as an employer, military officer, critic, or teacher.
- a person who believes they are infallible and tries to impose judgments, beliefs, standards of behavior, etc., on subordinates.
tin god
noun
- a self-important dictatorial person
- a person erroneously regarded as holy or venerable
51³Ō¹Ļ History and Origins
Origin of tin god1
Idioms and Phrases
A self-important, dictatorial, petty person who imposes ideas, beliefs, and standards on subordinates. For example, The officials in these small towns often act like tin gods . The tin in this expression alludes to the fact that tin is a base metal with relatively little value. [Late 1800s]Example Sentences
āThe law is what he lives by. Heāll do his best to prevent someone from beating up somebody else, then heāll turn around and try to stop no less than the Federal Governmentājust like you, child. You turned and tackled no less than your own tin godābut remember this, heāll always do it by the letter and by the spirit of the law. Thatās the way he lives.ā
Iām told heās the little tin god of Tintown.
You've been posing as a little tin god before the people of this State, and all the while you've been knifing and slugging and black-jacking private capital and private business wherever and whenever they have happened to get in your way.
If the three schools should be tied, and it should all hang on the Pentathlon, why, the fellow who won that would be a regular tin god, you know; he'd go down in the history of the school like George Washington in the history of the country.
But just wait till the bloom is off the honeymoon, and she finds herself all alone with her little tin god among the savages!
Advertisement
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Ā© Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American HeritageĀ® Idioms Dictionary copyright Ā© 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Browse