tinman

plural tinmen

1. A maker of tinware; a tinsmith.

   But if there are gipsies or tinmen about we shall have to keep our eyes open after anything they can lay their hands on.

   1934, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], The Bravo of London

   1 more example

   He seemed to feel quite at home at the tinman's, although they were hammering and tapping away there all day, but people said that the gudewife put a dish of porridge up in the garret for him every Thursday evening; and it's no wonder that they got on well and became rich when they had a brownie in the house.

   1886, Peter Christen Asbjø￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 11

2. A dealer in tinware.

plural tinmen

1. An uncaring or heartless man; a man lacking, or seeming to lack, feelings, emotions, or concern for others.
2. biologyA master gene in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, whose absence causes the fly to develop without a heart.

   Tinman belongs to a special class of genes. [...] But some genes make proteins that control other genes. Some act like master switches, triggering many different genes to work together to build a structure. Tinman is one such “master gene” for the fruit fly.

   2000, Carl Zimmer, “The Hidden Unity of Hearts”, in Natural History, volume 109, number 3, archived from the original on 07 Jan 2009, pages 56–61

1. A surname.