tinned

tinned — adjective

1. Tinned food is preserved inside a sealed metal container, usually to keep it edi

1.adjectiveA2
Definition

Tinned food is preserved inside a sealed metal container, usually to keep it edible for months or years.

Example

Bao opened a tin of tinned tomatoes to make pasta sauce.

tinned + noun (tomatoes), attributive use

The charity collected tinned beans and soup for families in need.

common objects: beans, soup

Common collocations
  • tinned tomatoes
  • tinned beans
  • tinned soup
  • tinned fish
  • tinned fruit
  • tinned vegetables
Synonyms
  • canned

    the standard American English term for the same concept; also used informally in British English

  • preserved

    a broader term that includes all methods of keeping food (pickling, freezing, salting, etc.)

Antonyms
  • fresh

    food that has not been preserved or packaged

Grammar Patterns

tinned + noun (food item)

Usage Note

This is the standard adjective in British English for food preserved in a sealed metal can. The American English equivalent is canned. Tinned is most often used before a noun — for example, tinned soup, tinned peaches, or tinned fish.

Common Mistakes

The garden shed is tinned.
The garden shed is made of tin.
Tinned refers to food preservation, not objects made from the metal tin.
This orange juice is tinned.
This orange juice is in a carton / in a bottle.
Tinned is normally used for solid or semi-solid foods, not for drinks.

Word family

  • tin
    nounA2
  • can
    nounA1
  • canned
    adjectiveB1
  • canning
    nounB2

Synonym discussion

Sense: adjective/1

Tinned and canned are near-synonyms describing food sealed in metal containers; tinned is the standard British term, while canned is the usual American term and is also common informally in the UK. Preserved is much broader — it includes pickled, salted, smoked, dried, and frozen foods, not just tin-packed items. Jarred specifically refers to food sealed in glass jars (e.g. jam, pickles, pasta sauce). When shopping in the UK, you ask for tinned tomatoes; in the US, you ask for canned tomatoes. If something is simply said to be preserved, it could have been kept fresh through any method — from salting to refrigeration.

tinned ↗cannedpreservedjarred

Common collocations

Nouns

Phrases

  • tin of tinned ...
  • tinned food

Prepositions

Etymology

Old EnglishEnglish

Tinned comes from the noun tin (the soft, silver-coloured metal) combined with the suffix -ed, meaning 'provided with' or 'put into'. Since the early 1800s, when food-preservation methods using sealed metal containers became common, tinned has been used to describe food stored in this way. The underlying word tin can be traced back to Old English tin of Germanic origin.