A mender of brass kettles, pans, and other metal ware.
To mend or solder, as metal wares; hence, more generally, to mend.
To busy one's self in mending old kettles, pans, etc.; to play the tinker; to be occupied with small mechanical works.
an itinerant mender and seller of kettles, tin pots and pans
How did the itinerant mender of household utensils [tinker is either a contraction of "worker in tin," or an onomatopoetic word for the sound of pots being repaired] come to be synonymous with "unsuccessful mender" and "bungler"? Why are we so threatened by rootlessness, and by the thought that someone would rather fiddle around than hold down a steady job? See: FIDDLE AROUND.
An itinerant tin pot and pan seller and repairman
a traveling repairman who mends broken things (such as metal household utensils)
try to fix or mend; "Can you tinker with the T.V. set--it's not working right"; "She always fiddles with her van on the weekend"
a person who mends things, the term especially applies to someone who mends pots, pans and kettles
Traveling handyman who repairs household items, such as pots and pans; person who can repair almost anything; jack-of-all trades
Originally meant an itinerant tinsmith, the word has lost all descriptive meaning and is now used as an entirely derogatory term for Our Friends In The Travelling Community. See also knacker. Tiocfaidh Ár Lá Irish for "our day will come"; the motto of the Republican movement. The motto also of ignorant Republican fellow-travellers who think that writing it on toilet walls is striking some sort of blow for national unity. Roughly pronounced "Chuckie Or Law" and often spelt that way too, literacy in Irish (or indeed, any language) not being a strong point with toilet-wall Republicans.
