The ethnic slur predates (and is the etymology of) the meaning you're familiar with.
The verb to tinker doesn’t appear until the mid-17th century, first meaning to work as a tinker and only later coming to mean what you're familiar with.
So while the root word’s sound-shape is debated, the order of senses is clear: the Traveller sense comes first, the modern “casual repair” sense comes later and was derived from it. This is the etymological order given in all sources, eg https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tinker
Does this page show something different in your region? For me it doesn't say anything about what you're claiming it does outside of one "chiefly Ireland, sometimes offensive" definition. The etymology only says "Middle English tinkere", and the history explicitly states its first use as being the not-"chiefly Ireland, sometimes offensive" definition. The etymologies I was seeing show it going from "this is a word that describes a job" and branching to "this group of people does this job a lot, let's call them this word" and "fiddling with things to do anything is close enough".
I'm genuinely interested in this, I work in what's a relatively "woke" domain (education) and I've never heard a complaint about something being called "tinkerable", even from colleagues in the UK.
The order of the senses is clear but different:
The "mender of kettles, pots, pans, etc.," sense come first.
The “gipsy” sense comes later an is derived from it.
The “repair or put into shape rudely or temporarily" - and later "work imperfectly, work in an experimental or meddlesome manner; keep busy in a useless way" - sense also comes from the first one.
[ Scottish Gypsies under the Stewarts; David MacRitchie; 1894 ]
You are going to great efforts to defend your use of a slur.
> Right, so as per your quote, the term referred to Travellers exclusively for centuries
The quote supports what I wrote before:
1) The "mender of kettles, pots, pans, etc.," sense come first.
2) The “gipsy” sense comes later and is derived from it.
What the quote says:
- Tinker was not an uncommon title in the thirteenth century.
- It was used to refer to tin smiths - usually with fixed residence.
- Those tin smiths were not of the same itinerant class with which we now [nineteenth century at the time of the writing] associate the term.
- Tinker used to require the epithet "wandering" to distinguish the "Travellers" specifically.
I have no idea how you may read it as confirming that it never referred to the occupation before adopting by association the second meaning.
> 2) The “gipsy” sense comes later and is derived from it.
This is controversial, but even if accepted, that still leaves 4-6 centuries where the term referred exclusively to Travellers before the verb came about directly from that meaning.
And what does "directly from that meaning" mean when it's obviously about the action of mending and not anything else related to the group of people associated with the occupation?
Even assuming that this derived meaning was indeed the primary meaning of the word at the time, which is unclear (let alone the "exclusive" meaning):
https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=t...
Ti'nker. n.s. [from tink, because their way of proclaiming their trade is to beat a kettle, or because in their work they make a tinkling noise.] A mender of old brass.
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> Who is Tom Snout?
ChatGPT said:
Tom Snout is a character in William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He is one of the “rude mechanicals” (a group of Athenian tradesmen) who gather to put on a play—"Pyramus and Thisbe"—to perform for Duke Theseus’s wedding.
Occupation: Tom Snout is a tinker (a repairman of metal household goods, like pots and pans). Role in the play-within-a-play: He is assigned the unusual part of “the Wall,” through which Pyramus and Thisbe whisper their love. He literally has to hold up his fingers to represent a gap in the wall.
Characterization: Like the other mechanicals, he is comically earnest and takes his role very seriously, though the performance ends up being hilariously clumsy. Would you like me to also explain how his role contributes to the comedy of the play?
> Is he a Traveller?
ChatGPT said:
Not in the sense of being a “Traveller” as in a wanderer or member of a travelling people. Tom Snout is just a local Athenian tradesman in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Shakespeare introduces him as a tinker (someone who fixes household metal goods). He’s part of the group of craftsmen—Bottom, Quince, Flute, Snug, and Starveling—who rehearse and perform the little play for Duke Theseus.
So no, he’s not depicted as a traveller in the story—he’s rooted in Athens, more of a comic “ordinary worker” than a roving character.