tinker

rude slang That which has little or no value. Fred doesn't give a tinker's curse about what anyone else thinks of him. I was so excited when my grandfather said he'd give me his car, but this old clunker isn't worth a tinker's curse.

rude slang That which has little or no value. Fred doesn't give a tinker's damn about what anyone else thinks of him. I was so excited when my grandfather said he'd give me his car, but this old clunker isn't worth a tinker's damn.

proverb A phrase that advises against wishing for impossible or absurd things to happen. The full phrase is, "If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there'd be no work for tinkers' hands." A: "If only my parents would give me a car, life would be so much easier." B: "Yeah, well, if ifs and ands were pots and pans, right?"

slang To not care about, or have any interest in, someone or something. Primarily heard in UK, Australia. Fred does not give a tinker's curse about what anyone else thinks of him.

rude slang To not care about, or have any interest in, someone or something. Primarily heard in UK, Australia. Fred does not give a tinker's cuss about what anyone else thinks of him.

rude slang To not care about, or have any interest in, someone or something. Fred does not give a tinker's damn about what anyone else thinks of him.

Having no value or integrity; worthless. The company offered vouchers to its employees, but they aren't worth a damn. You've broken your word so many times that your promises aren't worth a damn. My brother gave me his old laptop, but it's not worth a damn anymore.

Completely worthless or useless; having little or no value. I was so excited when my grandfather said he'd give me his car, but this old clunker isn't worth a tinker's curse. Over the years working here, I've come to realize that the boss's word isn't worth a tinker's curse.

Completely worthless or useless; having little or no value. I was so excited when my grandfather said he'd give me his car, but this old clunker isn't worth a tinker's damn. Over the years working here, I've come to realize that the boss's word isn't worth a tinker's damn.

A legendary baseball double-play. The phrase is used as the refrain in the poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon" by Franklin Piece Adams. It refers to three Chicago Cubs players from the early 20th century: Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and Frank Chance. I wish I had been born in an earlier era, so that I could have seen Tinker to Evers to Chance—not to mention Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and all the famous players of yore.

Prov. Wishing for things is useless. (Often said in reply to someone who says something beginning with "If only....") Daughter: If only we didn't have to move out of town, I'd be the happiest girl in the world. Grandmother: If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there'd be no work for tinkers' hands.

Fig. not to care at all. (A tinker's damn or dam may be a worthless curse from a tinker or a small dam or barrier used to contain molten metal.) I don't give a tinker's damn whether you go or not!

Inf. worthless. This pen is not worth a damn. When it comes to keeping score, she's not worth a damn.

to meddle with something; to play with something, trying to get it to work or work better. Let me tinker around with it for a while and see if I can get it to work. Please don't tinker with the controls.

Also, not worth a plugged nickel or red cent or bean or hill of beans or fig or straw or tinker's damn . Worthless, as in That car isn't worth a damn, or My new tennis racket is not worth a plugged nickel. As for the nouns here, a damn or curse is clearly of no great value (also see not give a damn); a plugged nickel in the 1800s referred to a debased five-cent coin; a cent denotes the smallest American coin, which was red when made of pure copper (1800s); a bean has been considered trivial or worthless since the late 1300s (Chaucer so used it), whereas hill of beans alludes to a planting method whereby four or five beans are put in a mound (and still are worthless); and both fig and straw have been items of no worth since about 1400. A tinker's dam, first recorded in 1877, was a wall of dough raised around a spot where a metal pipe is being repaired so as to hold solder in place until it hardens, whereupon the dam is discarded. However, tinker's damn was first recorded in 1839 and probably was merely an intensification of "not worth a damn," rather than having anything to do with the dam.

Try to repair, work aimlessly or unskillfully with, as in He tinkered with the engine all day but it still wouldn't start. This idiom, first recorded in 1658, alludes to working as a tinker, that is, mending metal utensils.

If you say that you don't give a tinker's damn or don't give a tinker's cuss about something or someone, you mean that you do not care about them at all. Most of these people couldn't give a tinker's damn about the students. For 50 weeks of the year, the great British public couldn't give a tinker's cuss about tennis. Note: You can also say that someone or something is not worth a tinker's damn when you think they are of no value. The real truth is you haven't been worth a tinker's damn all week.

Worthless. The catalog of similes signifying “without worth” is seemingly endless. This one, beginning life as “a tinker’s curse,” then became a tinker’s dam, a wall of dough raised around a place where a plumber is trying to repair a hole with solder. The dough holds the solder until it hardens and then is discarded. Misspelling turned it into damn and today “tinker” is usually omitted. (However, “damn” alone was also used in the eighteenth century.) Among the hundreds of similes denoting worthlessness that are still heard today are not worth a bean (see hill of beans); not worth a fig (also see under fig); not worth a button (thirteenth century); not worth a (brass) farthing (seventeenth century); not worth the paper it’s written on (usually applied to an IOU or bad check); not worth a pin (fifteenth century); not worth a plugged nickel (plug meant a debased coin; nineteenth century); not worth the powder to blow it up (nineteenth century); not worth a rap (a counterfeit half-penny circulating in Ireland in the early eighteenth century); not worth a red cent (the cent being the smallest American coin, red because it used to be made of pure copper; nineteenth century); not worth a straw (fourteenth century). See also worth one's salt.

Something of no value. Itinerant tinsmiths known as tinkers were roughand- ready men who saw no reason to watch their language. They swore so frequently that their curse words had no value for emphasis or anything else, and so something that was said to be worth a tinker's damn had no merit or value at all.