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
-
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
-
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
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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:
In the past, Newsom has been reluctant to greenlight laws that tinker with the state budget after those fiscal discussions conclude in the first half of the calendar year.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 29, 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
While her kids watch TV, Acheson likes to tinker with Claude.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 5, 2026
The tinker hurried outside to make use of the remaining daylight.
From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss
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
There was this feeling, especially early on, where it felt like we were the tinkers in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 21, 2024
The only way I see them slipping up here is if he tinkers with his team too much.
From BBC ● Jan. 25, 2024
With the Western Washington food landscape littered with doughnut shops, Vincent tinkers with different flavors to make his sweets stand out.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 4, 2023
There were tradesmen, traders, tinkers, masons, and carpenters, hauling goods of one kind or another.
From "Crispin: The Cross of Lead" by Avi
As he tinkered, he told David Allemann and Caspar Coppetti about his experiments, and they were hiking in the Swiss Alps when they decided to take on a more grueling uphill challenge: starting a company.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 3, 2026
Along the way, he tinkered with classical music on 1991's Liverpool Oratorio and released a series of dance albums as The Fireman.
From BBC ● May 27, 2026
I hit some other bumps in the road as I tinkered.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 19, 2026
The Badgers made seven of 11 three-pointers on the way to building a 20-point lead midway through the first half as Cronin continually tinkered with his lineup, trying to find a winning combination.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 6, 2026
But as Herman Miller tinkered with the design, coming up with new and better prototypes, and got people to overcome their qualms, the scores began to inch up.
From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell
Pepsi needs to stop tinkering and consider more fundamental changes, including a spinoff of its bottling operations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 17, 2026
But hey—they were going to keep tinkering with things.
From Slate ● Sep. 15, 2026
Shtilierman, an engineer and physicist more comfortable tinkering with prototypes than managing personnel and production chains, had known Terekh for several years and valued her business acumen.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026
Back in Bedford, Magnum researchers are tinkering with their core product, with a little robotic help.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
They were merely tinkering in a technological society.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
