| 1. | a mender of pots, kettles, pans, etc., usually an itinerant. |
| 2. | an unskillful or clumsy worker; bungler. |
| 3. | a person skilled in various minor kinds of mechanical work; jack-of-all-trades. |
| 4. | an act or instance of tinkering: Let me have a tinker at that motor. |
| 5. | Scot., Irish English.
|
| 6. | chub mackerel. |
| 7. | to busy oneself with a thing without useful results: Stop tinkering with that clock and take it to the repair shop. |
| 8. | to work unskillfully or clumsily at anything. |
| 9. | to do the work of a tinker. |
| 10. | to mend as a tinker. |
| 11. | to repair in an unskillful, clumsy, or makeshift way. |

| a small mackerel, Scomber japonicus, of Atlantic and Pacific seas and parts of the Indian Ocean. |
tinker
In addition to the idiom beginning with tinker, also see not worth a damn (tinker's damn).