tinker
[ting-ker]
- a mender of pots, kettles, pans, etc., usually an itinerant.
- an unskillful or clumsy worker; bungler.
- a person skilled in various minor kinds of mechanical work; jack-of-all-trades.
- an act or instance of tinkering: Let me have a tinker at that motor.
- Scot., Irish English.
- a gypsy.
- any itinerant worker.
- a wanderer.
- a beggar.
- chub mackerel.
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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.
- to work unskillfully or clumsily at anything.
- to do the work of a tinker.
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- to mend as a tinker.
- to repair in an unskillful, clumsy, or makeshift way.
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Origin of tinker
1225–75; Middle English tinkere (noun), syncopated variant of tinekere worker in tin
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for tinker
Contemporary Examples
You could tinker with them so they would boil but then the cops could take it away for being an ‘altered item’.
He could spell the names of all his classmates, and he loved building with Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys.
The Crossword Puzzle Turns 100: The ‘King of Crossword’ on Its Strange HistoryKevin Fallon
December 21, 2013
[Laughs] KROLL: The “Tinker Stinker” I like, in that it felt like a true labeling of something that happens.
‘The League’ Roundtable: The Cast Dishes on the Funniest Show You’re Not WatchingMarlow Stern
November 19, 2013
Oh, sure, if it would attract a few token Republican votes, they were willing to tinker with the price tag.
Tinker with these positions, several sages are quoted as saying, and the GOP will be back in the game.
Historical Examples
He can tinker up almost anything, and that eliminates the blacksmith.
In the Midst of AlarmsRobert Barr
He did not go down to the Lake this day, lest he should come near the tinker.
What Sami Sings with the BirdsJohanna Spyri
"Nay," quoth the Tinker, shaking his head slowly from side to side.
The Merry Adventures of Robin HoodHoward Pyle
"That will I not do, even to mine own brother," answered the Tinker.
The Merry Adventures of Robin HoodHoward Pyle
"But nought have I to pay thee with, good fellow," quoth the Tinker.
The Merry Adventures of Robin HoodHoward Pyle
tinker
- (esp formerly) a travelling mender of pots and pans
- a clumsy worker
- the act of tinkering
- Scot and Irish another name for Gypsy
- British informal a mischievous child
- any of several small mackerels that occur off the North American coast of the Atlantic
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- (intr foll by with) to play, fiddle, or meddle (with machinery, etc), esp while undertaking repairs
- to mend (pots and pans) as a tinker
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Word Origin
C13 tinkere, perhaps from tink tinkle, of imitative origin
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for tinker
n.
"mender of kettles, pots, pans, etc.," mid-13c. (as a surname), of uncertain origin. Some connect the word with the sound made by light hammering on metal. The verb meaning "to keep busy in a useless way" is first found 1650s. Tinker's damn "something slight and worthless" is from 1824, probably simply preserving tinkers' reputation for free and casual use of profanity; more elaborate derivations exist, but seem to be just-so stories without evidence.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Idioms and Phrases with tinker
tinker
In addition to the idiom beginning with tinker
- tinker with
also see:
- not worth a damn (tinker's damn)
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The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.