• n. 補鍋匠；修補匠；焊鍋；（美）小鯖魚
• vi. 做焊鍋匠；焊補；笨手笨腳地做事
• vt. 修補；粗修
• n. (Tinker)人名；(英)廷克

可能來自擬聲詞，-er,人。比喻用法。

tinker

tinker: [13] Etymologically, a tinker is probably a ‘worker in tin’. It could well be descended from an unrecorded Old English *tinecere, a plausible derivative of tin. There is an alternative possibility, however: it may have been derived from the now obsolete verb tink ‘tinkle’ (which, like tinkle [14] itself, was of imitative origin), in allusion to the metallic sounds made by tinkers repairing pots (northern and Scottish dialects had the word tinkler for ‘tinker’).

tinker (n.)

"mender of kettles, pots, pans, etc.," late 14c. (mid-13c. as a surname), of uncertain origin. Some connect the word with the sound made by light hammering on metal. Tinker's damn "something slight and worthless" is from 1824, probably preserving tinkers' reputation for free and casual use of profanity; the plain and simple etymology is not good enough for some writers, and since 1877 an ingeniously elaborate but baseless derivation has been circulated claiming the second word is really dam.

tinker (v.)

1590s, "to work as a tinker," from tinker (n.). Meaning "work imperfectly, keep busy in a useless way," is first found 1650s. Related: Tinkered; tinkering.

1. Don't tinker with the TV.

別瞎弄電視機.

來自《簡明英漢詞典》

2. He likes to tinker with radios.

他最愛鼓搗收音機.

來自《現代漢英綜合大詞典》

3. Please don't tinker with my car engine.

請不要亂弄我的汽車發動機.

來自《現代英漢綜合大詞典》

4. It isn't profane any more to say tinker's dam.

說‘tinker'sdam’這樣的話不應再被看作是一種‘褻瀆’.

來自互聯網

5. It is not enough to tinker at the edges; our objective must be to reconstruct the entire system.

只在外緣做一些小修小補是不夠的，我們的目標必須是重建整個系統。

來自柯林斯例句