Forms: (3 tynekere), 4 tinkere, 4–5 tynkere, -are, 4–7 tynker, 5 tenker, 6 tinkar, tyncar, tinkard(e, tynkard, 6–7 tincker, 6– tinker. [Origin uncertain; goes with TINK v.2, either as source or derivative.
Often taken as agent-noun from TINK v.,1 in reference to the noise made in hammering metal: cf. Promp. Parv., c. 1440, and Johnson ‘because in their work they make a tinkling noise.’ This explanation is not in itself very plausible, and its support by the Sc. form tinkler, as an assumed parallel derivative of tinkle, is overthrown by the fact that tinkle vb. was app. not in Sc. use. Moreover Sc. tinkler and Eng. tynkere appear as trade names or surnames in 1175 and 1265, respectively, and in many instances before 1300, long before any trace of tink or tinkle has been found.]
1. A craftsman (usually itinerant) who mends pots, kettles, and other metal household utensils.
The low repute in which these, esp. the itinerant sort, were held in former times is shown by the expressions to swear like a tinker, a tinker’s curse or damn, as drunk or as quarrelsome as a tinker, etc., and the use of ‘tinker’ as synonymous with ‘vagrant,’ ‘gipsy’ (see b).
c. 1265. in 6th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., 578/2 (Corporation of Wallingford). [The lowest assessment is that of] Editha þe Tynckere [at 2 pence].
1362. Langl., P. Pl., A. V. 160. Tomkyn þe Tinkere [1393 C. VII. 364 tynkere] and tweyne of his knaues. Ibid. (1377), B. Prol. 220. Taillours and tynkeres & tolleres in marketes.
14[?]. [see TINK v.2].
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 494/2. Tynkare,… tintinarius; et capit nomen a sono artis, ut tintinabulum, sus, et multa alia, per onomotopeiam.
c. 1510. Barclay, Mirr. Gd. Manners (1570), C ij. What should a hardie knight be felowe to a knaue, Or with a trifling tinkarde a clarke companion.
1566. Eng. Ch. Furniture (Peacock), 33. One crysmatorie sold to a tincker.
1573–80. Baret, Alv., T 265. A Tincker, or tinkeler, sarctor aerarius.
1590. Shaks., Mids. N., I. ii. 63. Tom Snowt, the Tinker.
1597. Shuttleworths’ Acc. (Chetham Soc.), 108. The tynkard for mendynge of mylkinge vessells vijd.
1608. Dekker, 2nd Pt. Honest Wh., Wks. 1873, II. 149. He … swore like a dozen of drunken Tinkers.
1611. Cotgr., Il iure comme vn Abbé [etc.], [he swears] like a Tinker, say we.
1674. Warrant for Arrest (Westm. Gaz., 16 March, 1904, 5/1). One John Bunnyon of yor said Towne Tynker hath divers times within one Month last past … preached or teached at a Conventicle Meeteing or assembly under color or pretence of exercise of Religion.
1717. Prior, Alma, III. 577. And, for the metal, The coin may mend a tinker’s kettle.
1832. Babbage, Econ. Manuf., i. 10. Worn-out saucepans and tin ware … beyond the reach of the tinker’s art.
1854. Macaulay, Biog. Bunyan (1867), 27. The tinkers then formed a hereditary caste.
b. In Scotland and north of Ireland, the ordinary name for a gipsy: see TINKLER1. Also, applied to itinerant beggars, traders, and performers generally; † a vagabond, tramp, or reputed thief (obs.).
The chief ostensible business of travelling gipsies in Scotland used to be the sale or mending of pots, pans, kettles, and metal-ware generally; hence tinkers, or rather tinklers, was their ordinary designation.
1561. Awdelay, Frat. Vacab. (1869), 5. A Tinkard leaueth his bag a sweating at the Alehouse … and … goeth abrode a begging.
1597. Act 39 Eliz., c. 4 § 2. All Juglers Tynkers Pedlers and Petty Chapmen wandring abroade.
1609. Armin, Maids of More-Cl., C iv. Lady. Is this the tinker you talke on? Hum. I madame of Twitnam, I haue seene him licke out burning fire brands with’s tongue, drinke two pense from the bottome of a full pottle of ale [etc.].
1801. Strutt, Sports & Past., III. v. § 29. Another itinerant, who seems in some degree to have rivalled the lower classes of the jugglers, was the tinker.
1806. Gazetteer Scotl. (ed. 2), 615/2. Yetholm…. This town has been long inhabited by tinkers or gypsies.
1896. Kath. Tynan, in Westm. Gaz., 14 Nov., 1/3. The ‘tinkers’ are the gipsies of the Irish country-side…. Tinkering is their ostensible trade, but they are supposed not to be particular about meum and tuum. They are a wild lawless set, and ‘tinker’ has come to be an abusive term in Ireland from its association with them.
c. A clumsy or inefficient mender; a botcher; also fig. In U.S. also applied to a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ (Cent. Dict.).
1644–7. [implied in tinkerwise below].
a. 1704. T. Brown, Praise Pov., Wks. 1730, I. 89. To cure one hóle, like a true tinker, he here makes two.
1905. Westm. Gaz., 13 Oct., 3/1. Not so, however, the new Secretary of State proved himself, but a ‘tinker’ like the rest.
d. Not to care, or be worth, a tinker’s curse or damn, an intensification of the earlier ‘not to care, or be worth, a curse or damn’ (see CURSE sb. 2 ¶, DAMN sb. 2), with reference to the reputed addiction of tinkers to profane swearing: see 1. Cf. also quot. 1884, in which ‘not to care a straw’ is similarly intensified. (An ingenious but baseless conjecture suggesting another origin appears in quot. 1877.)
[1824. Mactaggart, Sir Balderdash, v., in Gallovid. Encycl., s.v. Balderdash, A tinkler’s curse she did na care What she did think or say.]
1834. The Observer, 21 Sept., 2/5. The other Aldermen looked at him [Sir Charles Flower] with awe, for he ‘canted’ into his own plate the green dollops, leaving to his brethren the forced meats and fluid, and those other parts of the delicacy, which he considered not worth a ‘tinker’s dame.’
[1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., Tinker’s-dam, a wall of dough raised around a place which a plumber desires to flood with a coat of solder. The material can be but once used; being consequently thrown away as worthless, it has passed into a proverb, usually involving the wrong spelling of the otherwise innocent word ‘dam.’]
1884. St. James’ Gaz., 24 April, 12/1. I don’t care two tinkers straws if you do.
a. 1894. Stevenson, St. Ives, xxv. I care not a Tinker’s Damn for his ascension.
1907. Westm. Gaz., 28 Oct., 2/3. ‘A tinker’s curse,’ as used in the two new plays ‘Irene Wycherley’ and ‘The Barrier.’ Ibid. The suggestion that the phrase really refers to a ‘tinker’s dam’ … does credit to the speculative person who earliest associated it with the familiar old saying.
2. [f. TINKER v.] An act or bout of tinkering; a stroke of tinker’s work; fig. a bungling or unskilful attempt at mending something.
1857. Hughes, Tom Brown, I. i. They must … spend their time and money in having a tinker at it.
3. Local name for various fishes, birds, etc. a. The skate. b. The stickleback. c. U.S. A small or young mackerel; also, the chub-mackerel (Cent. Dict.). d. ‘The silversides, a fish’ (ibid.). e. The razor-billed auk. Newfoundland and Labrador. f. The guillemot: = TINKERSHERE. ‘A kind of seal. Newfoundland’ (Cent. Dict.).
1836. Yarrell, Brit. Fishes, II. 421. The Skate. Blue Skate, and Grey Skate, Scotland. Tinker, Lyme Regis.
1856. E. Newman, in Zoologist, XIV. 5125. We have in the ditches round London myriads of a very minute fresh-water fish, known to every boy … by the name of ‘tinker.’ Ibid. The Tinker or 9-spined Stickleback (Gasterosteus lævis).
1856. Atwood, in Goode, Fisheries (1884), 298. The tinkers, two years old…. The mackerel … are denominated as follows: Large ones, second size, tinkers, and blinks.
1861. Coues, in Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad., 251. It [the razor-billed auk] is known … to all fishermen and eggers … by the singular name of ‘Tinker.’
1886. Sci. Amer., 5 June, 352/3. Young mackerel or ‘tinkers.’
1896. Newton, Dict. Birds, Tinker, or Tinkershire, one of the many names of the Guillemot.
4. Ordnance. Name for a small mortar fixed on the end of a staff, and fired by a trigger and lanyard. U.S.
1877. in Knight, Dict. Mech.
5. attrib. and Comb., as tinker-like adj. and adv., -preacher, -tool; tinker mackerel = sense 3 c.
1705. Hickeringill, Priest-cr., II. viii. 90. Lest we make Tinker-like Work, like that of the Presbyterian-Directory, mend one hole, and make two.
1753. T. Cibber, Lett. to Warburton, 53. This unmerciful Editor, who, Tinker-like, makes many Holes for one he mends.
1857. Borrow, Romany Rye, xix. 118. Tinker-tools.
1888. Goode, Amer. Fishes, 179. A considerable school of these fish … were taken in company with the Tinker Mackerel.
1900. Westm. Gaz., 26 May, 8/1. Bedford … so intimately associated with the tinker-preacher’s life and work.
Hence Tinkerdom, a realm or domain of tinkers; the condition or practice of a tinker; Tinkerwise adv., in the manner of a tinker; Tinkery, the business of a tinker (in quot. attrib.).
1630. Tinker of Turvey, 12. A budget fastened with a thong,… wherein are All his tooles and tinkery ware.
1644–7. Cleveland, Char. Lond. Diurn., 8. What did this Parliament ever go about to reforme, but Tinkerwise, in mending one hole they made three?
1834. Carlyle, Lett., 27 June, in Life (1882), II. 439. His [Hunt’s] house excels all you have ever read of—a poetical Tinkerdom, without parallel even in literature. Ibid., 440. Yet the noble Hunt receives you in his Tinkerdom in the spirit of a king.
1887. Scott. Leader, 27 Oct., 7. Cis-pontine prejudices fed by poultry-larceny and tinkerdom.
