tinker's damnとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

Merriam-Webster finds tinker's damn in print since 1839 and suggests that it derives from tinkers' reputation for swearing.^[1] The spelling tinker's dam is attested since 1858,^[2] 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.^[3] The latter explanation has been offered since 1877;^[3][4] 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.^[4]

名詞

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.

同意語

• tinker's cuss (主に英国用法)
• tinker's toot

派生語

• not give a tinker's damn

参照

• 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.