A tin of Altoid mints
25 October 2024
Tin is a chemical element with atomic number 50 and the symbol Sn, which is from the Latin name for the metal, stannum. It is a soft, easily cut, silvery metal. It has been known since antiquity and has myriad applications.
The word tin comes from a common Germanic root, with cognates found in almost all the West and North Germanic languages. The word can be found in the late ninth-century Old English translation of the Pope Gregory the Great’s Cura Pastoralis (Pastoral Care):
Ða cwæð Dryhten, “Ðiss Israhela folc is geworden nu me to sindrum ond to are ond to tine ond to iserne ond to leade inne on minum ofne”; suelce he openlice cwæde, “Ic hie wolde geclænsian mid ðæm gesode ðæs broces, ond wolde ðæt hie wurden to golde ond to seolufre, ac hie wurdon gehwierfde inne on ðam ofne to are ond to tine ond to isene ond to leade, forðæm ðe hie noldon on ðæm gesuincium hie selfe gecirran to nyttum ðingum, ac ðurhwunedon on hiera unðeawum.”
(Then the Lord said, “this nation of Israel, has now become dross to me, and to copper and to tin and to iron and to lead in my furnace”; as if his plain meaning were, “I wished to purify them with smelting of tribulation, and wished that they would turn to gold and to silver, but inside the furnace they turned to copper and to tin and to iron and to lead, because in that hardship they would not turn themselves to beneficial things, but persisted in their sins.)
In antiquity and in the Middle Ages, seven of the elemental metals were each associated with a god and with a planet, with tin associated with Jupiter. We see this association in a variety of alchemical writings, including Chaucer’s The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale:
I wol yow telle, as was me taught also,
The foure spirites and the bodies sevene,
By ordre, as ofte I herde my lord hem nevene.
The firste spirit quyksilver called is,
The seconde orpyment, the thridde, ywis,
Sal armonyak, and the ferthe brymstoon.
The bodyes sevene eek, lo, hem heere anoon:
Sol gold is, and Luna silver we threpe,
Mars iren, Mercurie quyksilver we clepe,
Saturnus leed, and Juppiter is tyn,
And Venus coper, by my fader kyn!
(I will tell you, as it was taught also to me,
The four spirits and the seven metals,
In the order as I often heard my lord name them.
The first spirit is called quicksilver,
The second orpiment, the third, indeed,
Sal ammoniac, and the fourth brimstone.
The seven metals also, lo, hear them now:
The Sun is gold, and the Moon we assert silver,
Mars iron, Mercury we call quicksilver,
Saturn lead, and Jupiter is tin,
And Venus copper, by my father’s kin!)
The use of tin to mean a sealed metal container, a can, dates to the nineteenth century, after the tin-plated iron or steel originally used to make the containers. This usage is primary British.
Sources:
Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale.” The Canterbury Tales. In Larry D. Benson, ed. The Riverside Chaucer, 8.819–29, 273. Also, with minor variation in wording, at Harvard’s Geoffrey Chaucer Website.
Fulk, R. D., ed. The Old English Pastoral Care. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 72. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2021, chap. 37, 282.
Miśkowiec, Pawel. “Name Game: The Naming History of the Chemical Elements—Part 1—From Antiquity till the End of 18th Century.” Foundations of Chemistry. 1 November 2022. DOI: 10.1007/s10698-022-09448-5.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. tin, n.
Photo credit: Schyler, 2010. Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.