tinker
Americannoun
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tinkers
plural
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a mender of pots, kettles, pans, etc., usually an itinerant.
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an unskillful or clumsy worker; bungler.
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a person skilled in various minor kinds of mechanical work; jack-of-all-trades.
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an act or instance of tinkering.
Let me have a tinker at that motor.
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Scot., Irish English.
verb (used without object)
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tinkers,
present (3rd person singular)
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tinkered,
past participle, past
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tinkering
present participle
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to busy oneself with a thing without useful results.
Stop tinkering with that clock and take it to the repair shop.
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to work unskillfully or clumsily at anything.
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to do the work of a tinker.
verb (used with object)
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tinkers,
present (3rd person singular)
-
tinkered,
past participle, past
-
tinkering
present participle
-
to mend as a tinker.
-
to repair in an unskillful, clumsy, or makeshift way.
noun
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(esp formerly) a travelling mender of pots and pans
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a clumsy worker
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the act of tinkering
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another name for Gypsy
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informal a mischievous child
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any of several small mackerels that occur off the North American coast of the Atlantic
verb
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to play, fiddle, or meddle (with machinery, etc), esp while undertaking repairs
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to mend (pots and pans) as a tinker
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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tinkersimple
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tinkerssimple
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have tinkeredperfect
-
has tinkeredperfect
-
am tinkeringprogressive
-
are tinkeringprogressive
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is tinkeringprogressive
-
have been tinkeringperfect progressive
-
has been tinkeringperfect progressive
Past
-
tinkeredsimple
-
had tinkeredperfect
-
was tinkeringprogressive
-
were tinkeringprogressive
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had been tinkeringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of tinker
First recorded in 1225–75; Middle English tinkere (noun), syncopated variant of tinekere “worker in tin”
Explanation
When you tinker, you work casually or attempt to fix something, the way you might tinker with your brother's old bike or tinker with the website you're building for fun. As a verb, tinker means to fix (or mess around with) just about anything. For example, your creative writing teacher might ask you to tinker with your most recent short story and add more specific, vivid details. As a noun, tinker refers to a person whose job involves traveling around and fixing things. It's an old-fashioned word, dating from the 13th century, when traveling tinsmith wasn't an uncommon occupation.
Vocabulary lists containing tinker
Milkweed
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The Boy Who Invented TV
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Peter Pan
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The Fantasy Premier League season begins on Friday 21 August so, to help managers as you tinker with your teams before the deadline, we've gone through all 20 teams and analysed some of their assets.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
For a long time, I’d watched Paul tinker with the recipe for his perfect relationship.
From Salon ● Jul. 5, 2026
“I’m able to just go out and play baseball as opposed to trying to tinker and fix certain stuff.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 26, 2026
As the original firebrands age, a new generation looks to tinker with the system, loosen its ideological strictures, and even reanimate a national compact.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 8, 2026
The tinker hurried outside to make use of the remaining daylight.
From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss
As fans and pundits begin to predict City's downfall, Guardiola tinkers with his squad before a long winning streak results in his club being crowned Premier League champions.
From BBC ● Apr. 25, 2026
It tinkers with toe boxes, sponsors ranchers for bull-riding events and uses fabric that is more flexible to accommodate preferences for more functional fits.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 2, 2026
“I feel like he probably just tinkers with his beautiful vintage car collection. But who knows. Maybe he does goat yoga. He’s really a bloomin’ onion of man.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 28, 2025
Tesla frequently tinkers with the trim level names, driving ranges, power and features for its vehicles.
From Seattle Times ● May 15, 2024
Dad has his workshop next to mine and tinkers with his projects there.
From "Dreaming in Cuban" by Cristina García
There were several moments over the past decade that forced him to rethink that assumption, and he changed his mind altogether in 2022, as soon as he tinkered with ChatGPT.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 1, 2026
He’s tinkered with different grips for his changeup, a pitch he started deploying more in mid-May.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026
If Ms. Wilson has tinkered with Homer’s value system, as some allege, she has also kept closer than others to the original length and meter of the poem.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026
Amorim tinkered his system once more to try and turn the tide, but his substitution of Casemiro left the Brazilian befuddled.
From Barron's ● Dec. 26, 2025
Reginald James, the physicist, tinkered with the ship’s primitive radio.
From "Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World" by Jennifer Armstrong
And over time, from their tinkering comes their version of right and good.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2026
Although the unnecessary tinkering didn’t damage her truck, other chatbot advice could have.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 1, 2026
He wanted access to play games and visit blocked websites so he started tinkering with programming.
From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2026
Far from being a flawless machine, the body reads more like a patchwork of compromises shaped by millions of years of evolutionary tinkering.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 11, 2026
Parents who spent their days designing, building, fixing, and operating machines of transportation signed their sons up and gave free rein to their own tinkering instincts.
From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
