tinker's damn

English

Alternative forms

• tinker's dam
• tinker's darn (minced oath)

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.

Noun

tinker's damn

1. An insignificant or worthless amount or thing.
   • 1 May 1823, Mrs Chatterly, Anon in Ramblers Magazine, Vol 2 No 5, p. 216:

     […] 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. […]

   • 1921, Harvey Wickham, “Introducing the Garden of Eden”, in The Clue of the Primrose Petal, New York, N.Y.: Edward J. Clode, page 9:

     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.

   • 2012, Django Unchained:

     […] and I wouldn't sell you a tinker's damn.

Synonyms

• tinker's cuss (chiefly British)
• tinker's toot

Derived terms

• not give a tinker's damn

References

• The Maven's Word of the Day
• 1868 March, Mr. Thom. White's Little Sermon, in Putnam's Magazine, page 555: "No, Peter; women, now, are not worth a tinker's mill-dam—that's what I think." [...] Just what a "tinker's dam" is, I have no means of knowing; but I believe it to be something very worthless indeed.