rinky-dink
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈɹɪŋ.kɪ.dɪŋk/
ipa: /ˈɹɪŋkiˌdɪŋk/
Forms: form: rinky-dinks
Etymology: Origin unknown; possibly a variant of rickety (“of an object: not strong or sturdy; of a person: feeble in the joints, tottering”), reduplicated with a change of the initial consonant. The noun is attested earlier than the adjective.
Senses: examples: text: The point is that SCUBA diving is not for "rinky-dinks" ; it is for well trained people only, and then only in the company of other experienced divers.
ref: 1962, Journal of Physical Education and Recreation, volume 33, Washington, D.C.: American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 37, column 3:
text: Of course, most of the great players were at war and there was no need to pay the rinky-dinks, who were merely occupying uniforms until the studs got back.
ref: 2001, Jim Dent, The Undefeated: The Oklahoma Sooners and the Greatest Winning Streak in College Football, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Press, →ISBN:
text: We've been ordered to some godforsaken place near Pleiku—the whole damn company, you and me and them other rinky-dinks back in Qui Nhon.
ref: 2005, Norman S. Pratt, Noble Conflict: A Vietnam War Novel: A Soldier Reflects on His Struggle with Issues of Morality and Integrity in a War Zone, Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, →ISBN, page 178:
text: A player one time said, "You never let me play with Alcindor ([Kareem] Abdul-Jabbar). I can do better if you let me play with him. Now you have me with some rinky-dinks." I told him one time, "That's what somebody said about you when you were in there. You were one of the rinky-dinks."
ref: 2013, Eric J. DeMeulenaere, Colette N. Cann, with Chad R. Malone, James E. McDermott, quoting John Wooden, “Introduction”, in Reflections from the Field: How Coaching Made Us Better Teachers, Charlotte, N.C.: Information Age Publishing, →ISBN, page 15:
synonyms: word: absolute zero
word: also-ran
word: chopped liver
word: cipher
word: crumb
word: Joe Nobody
word: little guy
word: minnow
word: nebbish
word: nobody
word: no one
word: nothing
word: nothingburger
word: nonentity
word: picayune
word: pip-squeak
word: pleb
word: peon
word: prole
word: puny
word: quidam
word: rinky-dink
word: shrimp
word: wankstain
word: zero
word: zilch
word: absolute zero
word: asswipe
word: badling
word: blatherskite
word: bugger
word: carrion
word: cipher
word: cockstain
word: crumb
word: custron
word: dandiprat
word: doink
word: fellow
word: fritlag
word: geek
word: good-for-naught
word: good-for-nothing
word: hoon
word: lidderon
word: losel
word: loser
word: louse
word: maggot
word: nonce
word: nowmun
word: ne'er-do-well
word: no-good
word: no-mark
word: nonentity
word: pelf
word: pig dog
word: pile of shit
word: pissant
word: punk
word: puny
word: quat
word: ramp
word: rinky-dink
word: roly-poly
word: scullion
word: slubberdegullion
word: sparrow-fart
word: streak of piss
word: toerag
word: truant
word: twerp
word: wankstain
word: waste of space
word: underperson
word: unworthy
antonyms: word: worthless person
word: little guy
word: nonentity
word: peasant
word: peon
word: pleb
word: plebe
word: prole
word: shrimp
glosses: A person who is contemptible or insignificant.
An amateur or someone who is underqualified.
examples: text: In addition to such creeps, there is also found in various organizations an assortment of longhairs, corny antiques, arky back-numbers, moldy mossbacks, rinky-dinks, tintypes, schmoes and schmaltzes of all flavors.
ref: 1958, News and Views, New York, N.Y.: General Motors Acceptance Corporation, →OCLC, page 30, column 1:
text: "I'm suing the Pacific Gas and Electric Company," he [Ty Cobb] explained, "for overcharging me on the service. Those rinky-dinks tacked an extra sixteen dollars on my bill. Bunch of crooks. When I wouldn't pay, they cut off my utilities. Okay—I'll see them in court."
ref: 1996, Al Stump, “Extra Innings”, in Cobb: A Biography, Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, Workman Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 19:
text: The rinky-dink is the 'no problem' merchant who causes no end of trouble for everyone else in the organisation. He will promise anything to land a sale and in the process lands himself in the drink.
ref: 2000, Jim Green, “Cultivating the Selling Habit”, in Starting Your Own Business: The Bestselling Guide to Planning and Building a Successful Enterprise, 3rd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: How To Books, published 2004, →ISBN, page 88:
synonyms: word: absolute zero
word: also-ran
word: chopped liver
word: cipher
word: crumb
word: Joe Nobody
word: little guy
word: minnow
word: nebbish
word: nobody
word: no one
word: nothing
word: nothingburger
word: nonentity
word: picayune
word: pip-squeak
word: pleb
word: peon
word: prole
word: puny
word: quidam
word: rinky-dink
word: shrimp
word: wankstain
word: zero
word: zilch
word: absolute zero
word: asswipe
word: badling
word: blatherskite
word: bugger
word: carrion
word: cipher
word: cockstain
word: crumb
word: custron
word: dandiprat
word: doink
word: fellow
word: fritlag
word: geek
word: good-for-naught
word: good-for-nothing
word: hoon
word: lidderon
word: losel
word: loser
word: louse
word: maggot
word: nonce
word: nowmun
word: ne'er-do-well
word: no-good
word: no-mark
word: nonentity
word: pelf
word: pig dog
word: pile of shit
word: pissant
word: punk
word: puny
word: quat
word: ramp
word: rinky-dink
word: roly-poly
word: scullion
word: slubberdegullion
word: sparrow-fart
word: streak of piss
word: toerag
word: truant
word: twerp
word: wankstain
word: waste of space
word: underperson
word: unworthy
antonyms: word: worthless person
word: little guy
word: nonentity
word: peasant
word: peon
word: pleb
word: plebe
word: prole
word: shrimp
glosses: A person who is contemptible or insignificant.
Someone who operates unethically; specifically, a small-time conman or crook.
examples: text: But when we start getting really into the "rinky-dinks" of this thing is when we get over here in the columns.
ref: 1958, Proceedings of Progress in Measurement of Management Conference, October 31 – November 1, 1957, New York City, New York, N.Y.: Society for the Advancement of Management, →OCLC, page 84:
text: It was during this interval between wars that Dan Fahey, for the words "solve this problem", used the expression "unscramble this rinky-dink." This became usual lingo in the 306th. Starting in late June of 1950, there were lots of "rinky-dinks to be unscrambled.[…]"
ref: 1970, Ford E. Young, To the Regiment: The History of the 306th Cavalry Regiment and the 306th Armored Cavalry Group, Washington, D.C.: National Capitol Pub. Co., →OCLC, page 96:
text: The candor with which [Gerald] Ford constructed and presented his admittedly depressing Budget deprived the press of one of its favorite pastimes, namely, searching out the "rinky-dinks" in the document. In the past, such "rinky-dinks" existed partly in highly unrealistic assumptions concerning Congressional action requested by the incumbent President, or by the donning of rose-colored glasses in making economic assumptions.
ref: 1975 February 5, Charls E[dward] Walker, quoting Charls E. Walker’s Washington Economic Report (volume 3, number 3), “Revenues [Supplemental Material]”, in Macroeconomic Issues and the Fiscal Year 1976 Budget: Seminars: Committee on the Budget, United States Senate, Ninety-fourth Congress, First Session […], volume I, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, published May 1975, →OCLC, page 211:
text: Soon afterward, the federal government, in effect, outlawed the rinky-dinks by adopting minimum-strength standards.
ref: 1980, Mechanix Illustrated, volume 76, Greenwich, Conn.: Modern Mechanix Publishing Co., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 112:
glosses: Something that is not up to acceptable standards; something of low quality.
examples: text: [H]e, […] had just ordered a Sennett. […] He wanted no detachable top of pleb[e]ian characteristics; he wanted two regular bodies, one for winter and one for summer. And he wanted a special color and a monogram and a whole lot of rinky-dinks that cost him money.
ref: 1915 November 24, Ray W. Sherman, “Dodging Responsibility is Dodging Progress: Carrying Only Half the Burden is Not a 100% Performance—Reilly’s Revelation Surprises a Young Friend”, in Motor World: For Jobbers, Dealers and Garagemen, volume XLV, number 8, New York, N.Y.: Motor World Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 17, column 1:
text: Marilyn Monroe who was blonde and beautiful and had a sweet little rinky-dink of a voice and all the cleanliness of all the clean American backyards. She was our angel.
ref: 1973, Norman Mailer, Marilyn: A Biography, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →ISBN, page 15; quoted in Sam B. Girgus, “The Changing Face of American Redemption: Henry Fonda, Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman, and Denzel Washington”, in John Belton, editor, Levinas and the Cinema of Redemption: Time, Ethics, and the Feminine (Film and Culture Series), New York, N.Y.; Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press, 2010, →ISBN, page 90:
text: Coco was definitely a fifties person, not even in the same ballpark as the truly liberated young girls who let their children run barefoot and bareass through the park with their little pink rinky-dinks bobbing up and down.
ref: 1973, Barbara Raskin, chapter 20, in Loose Ends, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Press, published 1989, →ISBN, page 288:
synonyms: word: Sorted by number of Google hits
word: widget
word: hickey
word: gizmo
word: thingy
word: gimmick
word: thingie
word: jigger
word: gismo
word: gubbins
word: whatsit
word: thingamajig
word: doodad
word: whatchamacallit
word: doohickey
word: thingo
word: thingamabob
word: thingummy
word: whatsis
word: thingumajig
word: thingumabob
word: whatchacallit
word: Sorted alphabetically
word: affair
word: bazinga
word: bizzo
word: dealie
word: dealy
word: dinglehopper
word: dingus
word: dohickey
word: dojigger
word: dongle
word: doo-hickey
word: doober
word: doodah
word: doofer
word: doohickus
word: doohinkey
word: doohinkus
word: doojigger
word: doovalacky
word: foobar
word: foo
word: frammis
word: frobnitz
word: gadget
word: geegaw
word: gewgaw
word: gingambob
word: gingumbob
word: hodad
word: hootenanny
word: jawn
word: jimbang
word: jobber
word: jobby
word: joint
word: junk
word: kajigger
word: kludge
word: MacGuffin
word: oojamaflip
word: rigamajig
word: shebang
word: stuff
word: thingabob
word: thingamabobber
word: thingamafuck
word: thingamajigger
word: thingamajiggy
word: thingmabob
word: thingmajig
word: thingmy
word: thingummabob
word: thingummajig
word: thingummyjig
word: thingum
word: thingymabob
word: thingymajig
word: thing
word: ting
word: whachacallit
word: whachamacallit
word: whaddayacallit
word: whatchamahoozie
word: whatdyecallem
word: whatdoyoucallit
word: whatnot
word: whatsaname
word: whatsitsname
word: whiff-whaff
word: whosiewhatsit
word: whosit
word: wossisname
word: wossname
word: wotsit
word: yoke
word: yokibus
glosses: A miscellaneous object or thing; a thingy.
examples: text: [H]e entered the realm of educational matters […] Two years of his life were spent at this elevating game, during which time he had only eighty-two fights with fond mothers who felt that he had been either neglectful of their particular children or had ruthlessly given them the rinky-dink.
ref: 1901 June 6, “Insurance Fable. How to Be the Real Thing without Owning Mental Diamonds.”, in The Chronicle: A Weekly Insurance Journal, volume LXVII, number 23, New York, N.Y.: The Chronicle Company, […], page 270, column 2:
text: What's the matter with [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt and his Plan? / All the other reformers have them on the pan; / Fattened them up with printer's ink, / Then handed them the rinky dink.
ref: 1911, Alfred B. Rollins, Jr., “Stereotype of a Crusader”, in Roosevelt and Howe, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A[braham] Knopf, published 1962, →OCLC, page 31:
text: You have this triennial audit or examination and in the cases of the fringe companies like we had yesterday, without any real notice to stockholders or any certificate of an auditing firm; if they are interested in manipulation or rinky-dink of any kind they have 3 years practically to get away from it unless somebody picks it up out of the annual report.
ref: 1940 March 1, Leon Henderson, “Testimony of Ernest J. Howe, Chief Financial Adviser to the Insurance Section, Securities and Exchange Commission, Washington, D.C.—Resumed”, in Investigation of Concentration of Economic Power: Hearings before the Temporary National Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, Seventy-sixth Congress, Third Session Pursuant to Public Resolution No. 113 (Seventh-fifth Congress) Authorizing and Directing a Select Committee to Make a Full and Complete Study and Investigation with Respect to the Concentration of Economic Power in, and Financial Control over, Production and Distribution of Goods and Services: Part 28: Life Insurance: Operating Results and Investments […], Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 15436:
text: millie. When the soup wasn't too hot Welby'd put his hand in and hold Sonia's thumb. / allen. He was givin' her the old rinky dink, eh?
ref: 1954 November, Fred Allen, “Part IV: Allen’s Alley”, in Treadmill to Oblivion (An Atlantic Monthly Press Book), Boston, Mass.; Toronto, Ont.: Little, Brown and Company, published December 1954, →OCLC, page 176:
text: […] I have serious question as to whether the Internal Revenue would permit a trade of unlike for unlike, that is trading bonds for mortgages at obviously higher prices than the market price without forcing the institution that does trade it to take the loss at the time of the trade, which, if they have to do that there is no point in going through this rinky-dink of trading bonds for mortgages, you just go out and sell the bond and take your loss and do what you want to do with the money, […]
ref: 1959 January 29, Charles A. Wellman (witness), “Statement of Charles A. Wellman, Chairman of Legislative Committee and Executive Vice President of Glendale Federal Savings & Loan Association, Glendale, Calif.; […]”, in Housing Act of 1959: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Housing of the Committee on Banking and Currency, House of Representatives, Eighty-sixth Congress, First Session […], Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 304:
text: It became necessary for the State Board of Law Examiners to overrule the local board on that point. We are proud of him in that he didn't go through the rinky-dink that he said he had an office in his home and would practice at night.
ref: 1973, The Bar Examiner, volume 42, Denver, Colo.: National Conference of Bar Examiners, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 79:
text: Then it [a New York Times article] goes on to explain all of the rinky-dinks that have occurred in the mergers and gold parachutes.
ref: 1984 May 9, Arthur Burck (witness), “Statement of Arthur Burck, Merger Consultant, Palm Beach, Fl.”, in How the Financial System Can Best Be Shaped to Meet the Needs of the American People: Financial Deregulation: Hearings before the Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs, House of Representatives, Ninety-eighth Congress, Second Session on H.R. 5734: A Bill to Assure the Continued Viability of Depository Institutions […] (Serial No. 98-83), Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 587:
synonyms: word: Abraham work
word: deception
word: deceit
word: dupery
word: fiddle
word: hocus-pocus
word: jugglery
word: list
word: mislead
word: Punic faith
word: rinky-dink
word: ruse
word: subterfuge
word: swack
word: trickery
glosses: Deceptive or underhanded rigmarole; deception, trickery; (countable) often preceded by the: an instance of this; a deception, swindle, a trick.
examples: text: The [King] Oliver band had a new kind of beat, a real jazz beat instead of the ragtime rinky-dink.
ref: 1947, Bud Freeman, “Louis Armstrong, a Reminiscence”, in Ralph de Toledano, editor, Frontiers of Jazz, 3rd edition, Gretna, New Orleans, La.: Pelican Publishing Company, published 1994, →ISBN, page 119:
text: Devon on the run, then. No longer playing rinky-dink in fag clubs, pumping the organ in skidroad missions, humping ivories for small change and beer.
ref: 1990, D[onald] M[urray] Fraser, “In the Aftermath”, in Bryan Carson, editor, Ignorant Armies, Vancouver, B.C.: Pulp Press Book Publishers, →ISBN, page 98:
text: In his symphony, the form of the notes is the form of the moment, and the form of the moment is strings (lustre), horn (sheen), oboe (edge), harp (light) and glockenspiel (a touch of the rinky-dink).
ref: 2013, John Kefala Kerr, Thimio’s House, Ropley, Hampshire: Perfect Edge, John Hunt Publishing, →ISBN:
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: Alternative form of rinky-tink (“a tinkling, tinny style of music; honky-tonk”).