tin can

plural tin cans

1. A container, usually cylindrical, made out of sheet metal coated with tin, or (by extension) aluminum.

   Synonyms: tin, can

2. slangnauticalA destroyer.

   ‘What was it you said you did aboard that tin-can you came from?’

   1960, J. E. Macdonnell, Don't Gimme the Ships, Melbourne: Horwitz Publications, page 96

   1 more example

   As the tin can sailors started telling us what they thought of AKA sailors, which they said were inferior seamen habing to serve aboard an auxiliary vessel instead of a ship of the line;

   2000, Donald F. Myers, Your War, My War: A Marine in Vietnam, →ISBN, page 305

3. slangAn inexpensive car.

   We got a shockingly low price for it and bought a small tin-can run-around.

   2016, Liz Nugent, Lying In Wait, →ISBN, page 134

   1 more example

   They're driving the same tin can they've had since Emma and I were in kindergarten.

   2010, Heather Vogel Frederick, The Mother-Daughter Book Club, →ISBN, page 21

4. slangA motor home or trailer.

   I was too late as bearing down the ribbon of no return was a huge tin can piloted by two women with hair blowing over the side windows.

   2007, Errol L. Sweetser, Quest for the Ridge: A Childhood Adventure, →ISBN, page 34

5. slangliteratureA metal spaceship or space station.

   For here am I sitting in a tin can / Far above the world / Planet Earth is blue / And there's nothing I can do

   1969, David Bowie, “Space Oddity”

6. derogatoryinformalsometimesA nickname for a robot or artificial intelligence.

   Do as you’re told, tin can!