"tinker's damn" meaning in English

See tinker's damn in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Etymology: Merriam-Webster finds tinker's damn in print since 1839 and suggests that it derives from tinkers' reputation for swearing. The spelling tinker's dam is attested since 1858, and phrases.org.uk notes the disagreement over whether the term originated from tinkers' swearing or instead from their use of small, single-use dams to hold solder. The latter explanation has been offered since 1877; on the other hand, the phrase tinker's curse is attested since 1824 and the phrase worth a tinker's cuss is attested since 1854, for which reason Etymonline considers the "dam" derivation an "ingeniously elaborate but baseless" invention of later writers. Head templates: {{head|en|noun|head=tinker's damn}} tinker's damn
  1. An insignificant or worthless amount or thing. Synonyms: tinker's cuss [British], tinker's toot, tinker's dam, tinker's darn (english: minced oath) Derived forms: not give a tinker's damn
    Sense id: en-tinker's_damn-en-noun--iKSfTVq Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for tinker's damn meaning in English (2.3kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Merriam-Webster finds tinker's damn in print since 1839 and suggests that it derives from tinkers' reputation for swearing. The spelling tinker's dam is attested since 1858, and phrases.org.uk notes the disagreement over whether the term originated from tinkers' swearing or instead from their use of small, single-use dams to hold solder. The latter explanation has been offered since 1877; on the other hand, the phrase tinker's curse is attested since 1824 and the phrase worth a tinker's cuss is attested since 1854, for which reason Etymonline considers the \"dam\" derivation an \"ingeniously elaborate but baseless\" invention of later writers.",
  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {
        "1": "en",
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        "head": "tinker's damn"
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
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          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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          "source": "w"
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      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "not give a tinker's damn"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1 May 1823, Mrs Chatterly, Anon in Ramblers Magazine, Vol 2 No 5, p. 216",
          "text": "[…] is not worth (to use expression excited by honest indignation) a tinker's damn : and if Mrs. Chatterly has no other salvo for her precious reputation. […]"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1921, Harvey Wickham, “Introducing the Garden of Eden”, in The Clue of the Primrose Petal, New York, N.Y.: Edward J. Clode, page 9",
          "text": "So now, stimulated by some further experience with that world which does not care a tinker’s damn whether a verb agrees with its subject in number and person or not, she permitted the taxicab to jounce her smile out of all semblance to anything calmly superior and into a very unschoolmarmish grin.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Django Unchained",
          "text": "[…] and I wouldn't sell you a tinker's damn.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An insignificant or worthless amount or thing."
      ],
      "id": "en-tinker's_damn-en-noun--iKSfTVq",
      "links": [
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          "worthless"
        ],
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      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "British"
          ],
          "word": "tinker's cuss"
        },
        {
          "word": "tinker's toot"
        },
        {
          "word": "tinker's dam"
        },
        {
          "english": "minced oath",
          "word": "tinker's darn"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "tinker's damn"
}
{
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "not give a tinker's damn"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Merriam-Webster finds tinker's damn in print since 1839 and suggests that it derives from tinkers' reputation for swearing. The spelling tinker's dam is attested since 1858, and phrases.org.uk notes the disagreement over whether the term originated from tinkers' swearing or instead from their use of small, single-use dams to hold solder. The latter explanation has been offered since 1877; on the other hand, the phrase tinker's curse is attested since 1824 and the phrase worth a tinker's cuss is attested since 1854, for which reason Etymonline considers the \"dam\" derivation an \"ingeniously elaborate but baseless\" invention of later writers.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "noun",
        "head": "tinker's damn"
      },
      "expansion": "tinker's damn",
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    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1 May 1823, Mrs Chatterly, Anon in Ramblers Magazine, Vol 2 No 5, p. 216",
          "text": "[…] is not worth (to use expression excited by honest indignation) a tinker's damn : and if Mrs. Chatterly has no other salvo for her precious reputation. […]"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1921, Harvey Wickham, “Introducing the Garden of Eden”, in The Clue of the Primrose Petal, New York, N.Y.: Edward J. Clode, page 9",
          "text": "So now, stimulated by some further experience with that world which does not care a tinker’s damn whether a verb agrees with its subject in number and person or not, she permitted the taxicab to jounce her smile out of all semblance to anything calmly superior and into a very unschoolmarmish grin.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Django Unchained",
          "text": "[…] and I wouldn't sell you a tinker's damn.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An insignificant or worthless amount or thing."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "worthless",
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        ],
        [
          "amount",
          "amount"
        ],
        [
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        ]
      ]
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  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "tags": [
        "British"
      ],
      "word": "tinker's cuss"
    },
    {
      "word": "tinker's toot"
    },
    {
      "word": "tinker's dam"
    },
    {
      "english": "minced oath",
      "word": "tinker's darn"
    }
  ],
  "word": "tinker's damn"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.