tin hat n.1
1. (also tin derby, tin lid) a helmet.
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Eve. Teleg. 13 Oct.2/6: Saved by a Tin Hat [...] He states he was wounded on 1st October by shrapnel [...] ‘I’d had been dead as a doornail [...] had it not been for my tin hat. | |
 | ‘Wally’ Wallgren [comic strip] Never unnecessarily stop a descending shell with your tin derby. | |
| Lingo of No Man’s Land 86: TIN HAT Tommy's name for the steel helmet. The name sometimes applied to staff officers. | |
| Hist. of 310th Infantry 29: The one way to keep the cap from acting as a sponge was to wear it under a ‘tin lid.’. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Digger Dialects 50: tin hat — Steel helmet. | |
| (con. WWI) Gloss. Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: tin hat. A flat steel helmet for protecting the head against shrapnel bullets. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Western Dly Press 4 Apr. 12/5: It is not right [...] to take a man from a farm or factory, put a tin hat on him and then, if his nerve fails, shoot him. | |
| Western Mail (Perth) 19 Feb. 2/1: They were discussing tin hats at the reunion [...] ‘That’ll tell yer if their tin lids were any good’. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Phila. Eve. Ledger 20 July n.p.: ‘Tin hat’--trench helmet. | |
| Western Morn. News 3 May 3/6: Used ‘Tin Hat’ as Broom [...] A gas company worker recently found a new use for his steel helmet [etc.]. |
2. a senior officer [rare var. on brass hat under brass adj.1 ].
| see sense 1. | |
| Amer. Lang. (4th edn) 573: A few novelties came in, e.g., tin-hat and a.w.o.l., and there was some fashioning of counter-words and phrases from French materials. |
In phrases
to perform an ultimate, usu. negative, act, to finish (off) completely; note extrapolation in cit. 1970.
| Penny Illus. Paper 11 Sept. 9/1: ‘[W]et through every day, not stitch of dry kit, and, to put the tin hat on the lot, my ’orse is dead lame, and I’m five miles — five bloomin’, stiffening miles! — from camp’. | |
| Durham Co. Advertiser 29 Dec. 8/2: LETTER FROM A DURHAM SOLDIER. HOW HE PUT ‘THE TIN HAT’ ON A FLEEING BOER [...] One them tried get away, but did not get far. I soon had a bullet on its way to seek him, and it found his leg and dropped him. That put the ‘tin hat on’ but we had to carry the blessed sod in then. My regards to all home. | |
| St Andrews Citizen 17 Mar. 3/4: The fighting lasted three [...] days, but the third day put the tin hat on it. We had them on the hill, and [...] subjected them to terrible fire. By night we saw them retiring. | |
| Hull Dly Mail 24 Dec. 2/4: The poor support when we called a meeting put the ‘tin hat’ on the suggestion. | |
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | ‘Billy Higginbotham’s Lapse’ in Sun. Times (Johannesburg) n.p.: The second mate put the tin-hat on it all when he made the night-watchman give up those Hamburg boots. | |
| Liverpool Echo 15 Feb. 3/7: I am in great demand as an interpreter; but somebody put the tin hat on it the other day by calling me an ‘interrupter!’. | |
| Dly Teleg. (Launceston, Tas.) 17 May 11/2: They revolted, demanded higher pay, and refused to write any more for him until they got it. This totally unlooked for crisis fairly put our author into a corner - put the ‘tin hat’ on him as they would nowadays say - and [...] much against his will, was forced to accede to the demands of the not too highly paid scribes. | |
| N&Q 12 Ser. IX 467: Tin Hat On It (Just About Put the). Nearly spoilt everything. | |
| (con. WWI) Soldier and Sailor Words 282: Tin Hat On It, To Put A: To finish. To overdo. To add the last straw. | |
| (con. WWI) Shorty Bill 256: And the combination [of words] put the brass hat on. | |
| Western Dly Press 19 Mar. 9/7: It really is the Parish Council who have ‘put the tin hat on it’. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | (con. 1880–90s) I Knock at the Door 182: I’ll dance in then and put the tin hat on him. | |
| Eve. Teleg. (Dundee) 25 Jan. 3/4: Friday night put the tin hat on Scottish listeners [to the radio]. | |
| Caretaker Act III: And to put the old tin lid on it, you stink from arse-hole to breakfast time. | |
| Goodbye to The Hill (1966) 167: And to put the tin hat on it there was a fella in the front row who could sing ten times louder than I could. | |
| Start in Life (1979) 87: When his head finally hit the tin lid. | |
| Breakfast on Pluto 45: I think what put the tin hat on it was when they decided to top young Laurence Feely. | |
| Twitter 24 Dec. 🌐 The discovery that Scottish 80s funkateer Jesse Rae had a brief & unsuccessful career in porn under the name ‘Jock Pleasure’ has put the tin hat on this fuckin’ year. |