tinker's dam
- noun
- Archaic
:
cosa sin valor
- They were arguing over something that didn't mean a tinker's dam in the long run.
Examples
-
For all her bluster, she wouldn't give a tinker's dam if her project fails.
-
He doesn't care a tinker's dam about what others think of him.
-
It doesn't matter what the truth is because the small-c communists don't give a tinker's dam about the truth.
Blog text (23)
Synonyms
∞
9.9
Something worthless or untrue that people say to you
398
6.6
Something of little or no value, often in negative phrases
35
5.5
Something of little or no value
14
1.7
A thing that is useless and not worth keeping
5
6.3
A very small amount of money, often meaning nothing at all
2
9.9
Something of little or no worth
Antonyms
How Valuable
Surface Forms
Morphology
tinker's + dam
The meaning 'something of no value' cannot be compositionally derived from 'tinker' (a tinsmith/repairer) and 'dam' (a barrier); the phrase is idiomatic and historically obscure (often attested as 'tinker's damn') rather than literally referring to a dam. Because the link between the parts and the idiomatic sense is unpredictable and language-specific, a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would not reliably infer the meaning.
Etymology
Tinker's dam may come from old repair work: a tinker, a person who fixed metal pots, would build a small dam of clay or scrap to hold melted metal while joining pieces, and that tiny dam was thrown away after use. That's why the phrase came to mean 'worthless'.