Meaning

(countable) A person who is contemptible or insignificant..

Definitions by Sense

1. (countable) A person who is contemptible or insignificant.
2. (countable) Something that is not up to acceptable standards; something of low quality.
3. (countable) A miscellaneous object or thing; a thingy.
4. (archaic, uncountable) Deceptive or underhanded rigmarole; deception, trickery; (countable) often preceded by the: an instance of this; a deception, swindle, a trick.
5. (uncountable, music) Alternative form of rinky-tink (“a tinkling, tinny style of music; honky-tonk”).
6. Of poor quality; amateurish, shoddy, small-time.
7. Old-fashioned, tired; also, shabby, worn-out.
8. Crooked, dishonest, underhanded.

Example Sentences

But when we start getting really into the "rinky-dinks" of this thing is when we get over here in the columns.

It was during this interval between wars that Dan Fahey, for the words "solve this problem", used the expression "unscramble this rinky-dink." This became usual lingo in the 306th. Starting in late June of 1950, there were lots of "rinky-dinks to be unscrambled.[…]"

The candor with which [Gerald] Ford constructed and presented his admittedly depressing Budget deprived the press of one of its favorite pastimes, namely, searching out the "rinky-dinks" in the document. In the past, such "rinky-dinks" existed partly in highly unrealistic assumptions concerning Congressional action requested by the incumbent President, or by the donning of rose-colored glasses in making economic assumptions.

Soon afterward, the federal government, in effect, outlawed the rinky-dinks by adopting minimum-strength standards.

[H]e, […] had just ordered a Sennett. […] He wanted no detachable top of pleb[e]ian characteristics; he wanted two regular bodies, one for winter and one for summer. And he wanted a special color and a monogram and a whole lot of rinky-dinks that cost him money.

Marilyn Monroe who was blonde and beautiful and had a sweet little rinky-dink of a voice and all the cleanliness of all the clean American backyards. She was our angel.

Coco was definitely a fifties person, not even in the same ballpark as the truly liberated young girls who let their children run barefoot and bareass through the park with their little pink rinky-dinks bobbing up and down.

[H]e entered the realm of educational matters […] Two years of his life were spent at this elevating game, during which time he had only eighty-two fights with fond mothers who felt that he had been either neglectful of their particular children or had ruthlessly given them the rinky-dink.

Word Forms

• rinky-dinks
• rinky-dinky

Synonyms for rinky-dink

Antonyms for rinky-dink

Related Words

When Should You Use Rinky-dink?

Use rinky-dink when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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