[f. TIN sb. or v. + -ER1.]
1. One who gets or digs tin ore; a tin-miner.
1512. Act 4 Hen. VIII., c. 8. All other tynners … dyggyng of tyn in the severall soyle of the said Richard.
1602. Carew, Cornwall, 8 b. Where the finding of these affordeth a tempting likelihood, the Tynners goe to worke.
1670. Pettus, Fodinæ Reg., 12. The King for advancement of the Stannaries … frees the Tinners from all pleas of the Natives touching the Court.
1743. Wesley, Jrnl. (1903), 147. Nine or ten miles east of St. Ives, where we found two or three hundred tinners.
1883. R. T. Dyer, in Leisure Hour, Dec., 733/2. In Cornwall, the second Monday before Christmas is a festival kept by the tinners.
2. One who works in tin; a tin-plater, tinman, tinsmith.
1611. Cotgr., Estaingnier, a Pewterer, a Tinner.
a. 1817. T. Dwight, Trav. New Eng., etc. (1821), II. 53. His trade was that of a tinner.
1890. Anthony’s Photogr. Bull., III. 45. Have made for you at any tinner’s, a tin pan about an inch larger all around than your toning tray.
3. One who tins meat, fruit, etc.; a canner.
1906. Referee, 26 Aug., 9/2. Then down with the kickshaws that all taste alike, And the stock of cold storer and tinner.
4. Local name for the pied wagtail: see quot.
1880. W. Cornwall Gloss, Tinner.… ‘A water wagtail.’ Bottrell.
1904. Athenæum, 4 June, 274/3. The pied wagtail … known [at Land’s End] as the ‘tinner,’ because it builds its nest in the mouth of old mine-shafts.
