Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use tinker in a sentence

24 example sentences · noun, verb

Tinker means an itinerant tinsmith and mender of household utensils made of metal. Example: “I'll have a tinker and see what I can do.”

Examples of tinker by meaning

nounAn act of repair or invention.

  • I'll have a tinker and see what I can do.

verbTo fiddle with something in an attempt to fix, mend or improve it, especially in an experimental or unskilled manner.

  • Tinker with nature and quantify how it responds.2012 January, Robert M. Pringle, “How to Be Manipulative”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 1, archived from the original on 03...
  • And because he wants to show that he is a dominant male, he tinkered the engine of his motorbike to make it even noisier.2013, Eric Goulard, Body Language Secrets Revealed
  • We're not just talking about changes that tinker around the edges - we're looking to take advantage of some of the world's latest digital and tech developments to improve our service.2020 May 20, “Network News: LNER seeks innovation through FutureLabs project”, in Rail, page 14

More sentences with tinker

  • For a while, this Perettian tinkering was our special knowledge, our competitive advantage.2023 May 3, Nathan Heller, “BuzzFeed, Gawker, and the Casualties of the Traffic Wars”, in The New Yorker, New York, N.Y.: Condé Nast…. From the entry Perettian
  • Word has it that the DfT and Treasury are considering gradualist tinkering.2022 November 30, Anthony Lambert, “Rail fares fit for the 21st century”, in RAIL, number 971, page 41. From the entry gradualist
  • We can't tinker with this tax code monstrosity or try to reform around the edges.2011, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Ways and Means, Impediments to Job Creation: Hearing Before the Committee on Ways and…. From the entry drive a stake through its heart
  • The woman frowned and tinkered with one of the cheap brooches that held her shoulderstraps.1992, Sheelagh Kelly, chapter 20, in Jorvik: A Tale of the Last Viking, London: Century, →ISBN, page 395. From the entry shoulderstrap
  • And make sure that everything's running smooth: there's got to be no tinkering this excursion.1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London. From the entry juice
  • But political tinkering is never far away and British Rail, during much of its life, was subjected to it.2026 August 19, Richard Wilcock, “Structure and power in the times of GBR”, in RAIL, number 1068, page 21. From the entry subject
  • The biological aspects of technology—its klugeyness, its growth and change due to evolutionary tinkering, its many miscellaneous details—are extensive.2016 July 19, Samuel Arbesman, “The Need for Biological Thinking”, in Overcomplicated: Technology at the Limits of Comprehension, New…. From the entry klugeyness
  • Ensorcelled gates—even long abandoned ones—aren't something to tinker with.2014, The Elder Scrolls Online (video game). From the entry ensorcelled
  • I'd make a daisy chain for the fairies or play with the tinker tailor grass, or just dream the time away.2012, Durelle Dean, Ravaged Innocence, page 82. From the entry tinker tailor grass
  • Layfield, he spent a year tinkering with substitute ingredients.2008 April 21, Brooks Barnes, “Selling Chat on Fox, and a Sex-Enhancing Potion on the Side”, in New York Times. From the entry mamajuana
  • Too much tinkering, too much Young Tom Edison.2001 May 1, Michiko Kakutani, “Books of The Times: Toting the Wins and Losses Of a Pitcher's Art and Psyche”, in The New York Times, New…. From the entry overcreative
  • Youve been on the ran dan you couple of wee tinkers and your mother's up to high doe.1995, Alan Warner, Morvern Callar, Vintage, published 2015, page 27. From the entry high doh
  • They are warning us, often without knowing it, about a blind and dangerous tinkering with the mechanism of the world.1980 July, James E. Lovelock, “Living Planet Earth”, in Omni, volume 2, number 10, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 124, column 3. From the entry Gaia
  • The tinkers then formed a hereditary caste.1911, Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Bunyan, John”, in 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. From the entry caste
  • Watching some of their early shorts reveals that the Huangs conceived of "BFDI" when they were still children, tinkering with rudimentary animation programs at home.2025 October 23, Witney Seibold, “What Are Object Shows And Why Is Gen-Alpha Obsessed With Them?”, in /Film, Fishers, Ind.: Static Media…. From the entry BFDI
  • The term is street slang for a cheap, functional car favored by city youths who often tinker tirelessly to make the car a speedster.2007 October 24, Corey Kilgannon, “A High School Under the Hood”, in The New York Times. From the entry hooptee
  • I argue that no amount of curriculum tinkering and academic committeeing will cause us to rise from these doldrums and to the environmental occasion.1992, John C. Gordon, Agriculture and the Undergraduate. From the entry committeeing
  • It took several accidental extinguishings and considerable tinkering with the external oxygen flow between Adam below and Jordan at the controls before he managed to get much ice melted.2000, Michael Phillips, A Rift in Time, page 20. From the entry extinguishing
  • So, fellow alt.writers, when you reach this point in your writing, do you stay away from the story for a while, do you continue tinkering with it, or what?1998 April 27, RDeschene, “Yippee, rough draft is done!”, in alt.writing (Usenet), retrieved 27 May 2022. From the entry alt.writer
  • But after 15 years of tinkering in her Earlysville, Va., home laboratory, Fredrica Coates has developed a diaper product she says will combine the benefits of both cloth and disposables.1995 August 20, Knight Ridder, “Hybrid diaper now available”, in The Daily Herald, page B6. From the entry hybrid diaper

Meaning of tinker

  1. noun An itinerant tinsmith and mender of household utensils made of metal.
  2. noun A member of the Irish Traveller community or of other itinerant groups; a gypsy.
  3. noun A mischievous person, especially a playful, impish youngster.

Full definition of tinker

Questions about tinker in a sentence

How do you use tinker in a sentence?
Tinker is used as a noun and verb. For example: “I'll have a tinker and see what I can do.”
What is a short sentence with tinker?
“The tinkers then formed a hereditary caste.”
What does tinker mean?
Tinker means an itinerant tinsmith and mender of household utensils made of metal.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tinker (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use tinker in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/tinker. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.