A thin, shiny metal covering used in cooking and food storage; actually made from aluminum now, though the name comes from an older tin-based version.
Literally 'tin foil'—originally made from thin tin sheets. When aluminum foil was invented in the 1910s, it was cheaper and more durable, but the name 'tinfoil' stuck despite the material changing.
Tinfoil hasn't been made of tin since the early 1900s, yet we still call aluminum foil 'tinfoil'—it's a ghost word, keeping the name of a material we stopped using over a century ago.
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