rinky-dink

rinky-dink

Insignificant or subpar. This rinky-dink old house needs a lot of renovations. I can't wait to get out of this rinky-dink town and live in the big city.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

rinky-dink

(ˈrɪŋkiˈdɪŋk)
mod. cheap; inferior; broken down. I sold my rinky-dink old car yesterday.
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • dink
  • dink off
  • dink someone off
  • not the half of
  • not the half of it/(something)
  • dinky
  • much ado about nothing
  • ado
  • bully (one) into (something)
References in periodicals archive
"The iPad Air will compete with Surface Pro, not some rinky-dink Android tablet." Apple's new iPad Air - its full-size tablet - is about 20% thinner than the previous generation of tablets, weighs one pound and starts at $499.
Behind him a rinky-dink set of borrowed harrows brought him shame again--the bank forced us to sell all our equipment at the end of the previous year, including Dad's big blood-red Massey-Ferguson.
For his fourth wee musical for Oran Mor's A Play, a Pie & A Pint season, Anderson was reflecting on a teenage holiday romance between his younger self, played with energetic innocence by Jack Mullen, and Katie Barnett as a rinky-dink all-Caledonian showgirl.
New developments spread along the Black Sea coast, through Communist-era resorts and rinky-dink fishing villages and up into the mountain ski towns of Bansko, Pamporovo and Borotvets, revitalizing once sleepy and dated locales.
I eventually emerged at the bus stop to board the #21 straight to Bethlehem and then the walk thru Bethlehem's Old City, another bus, the old rinky-dink one, and finally home in Beit Sahour where I was famished and fatigued.
Contents: Volume 1: To begin with ..., Hornpipe, Gracefully, Ghostly March; Volume 2: Beguine, Just for Fun, The Spook Spoke, Barbershop/Dixie; Volume 3: Charleston, Struttin', Wistful Ballad, With Abandon; Volume 4: Something Old, Something in Two, Something Borrowed, Something Blue; Volume 5: Rinky-dink March, Jaunty, Swing Waltz, Pushy; Volume 6: Calm and "Cool", Happy, With a Lilt, Light and Latin; Volume 7: Takin' It Easy, Strollin' A Bit Boisterous, Brightly; Volume 8: Overdone Tango, Lazy Blues, Sassy, Movin' Along.
Close to $1 trillion annually just to fight small cadres of terrorists or a couple of rinky-dink nuclear states?
Gareth Barry was found guilty of playing a "rinky-dink pass" as Lawro descended into camp farce.
only to then feel affronted as Frank's rinky-dink keyboards came in, followed by his daft vocals: "I was born in Timperley/Oh Timperley is really great/I go shopping in Timperley/Cos we've got loads of shops/That's where I do all the shopping for me mum/Five pounds of potatoes and loads of chops!" Then there were his football chants, including the wonderful put-down "You're going home on an organised football coach!" He was also a man of great wisdom - back in 1992, at the former Hardman House Hotel in Hardman Street, where he was hosting Club Magico nights during the Liverpool Festival of Comedy, Frank told me: "My advice to anyone who wants to follow me into showbusiness is 'Don't let your mum know!
Eros decided to expand in order to reach the third- and fourth-generation South Asians who wanted to see Hindi films but didn't want to go to a rinky-dink theater for their Amitabh Bachchan fix.
Milberg Weiss was not some rinky-dink group of ambulance chasers; it was the Cadillac of plaintiff's law firms, whose attorneys were well credentialed (many of them former assistant U.S.
Could it be that building a skating rink behind City Hall was a rinky-dink idea?
The NCUA still must reform the share insurance fund, address systemic risk and modernize things that are outdated and flat out rinky-dink in this industry.
She expects to cover the usual fodder for this kind of local publication (a "rinky-dink newspaper in some Southern backwater"), school pageants and science fairs and town council meetings.
I thought they sounded very rinky-dink. But as human beings I loved them.