Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Informal Of small size or consequence; insignificant.
- adj. Informal Of poor quality; shabby.
- n. Variant of dinkey.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Small and neat; trim; tidy; nice.
- Small but pretentious; small and insignificant.
- n. Something small or insignificant.
- n. An apparatus of smaller size than the usual standard, as a pony- or donkey-engine for doing work which requires small horse-power.
- n. A pair of wheels on an axle used to carry the weight of a beam or pole in erecting structures or wire lines. The axle is usually curved upward in the middle, with a lever affixed, so that the weight can first be raised off the ground, in a sling, and then wheeled to the desired point.
Wiktionary
- adj. informal, UK Tiny and cute; small and attractive.
- adj. informal, US Tiny and insignificant; small and undesirable.
- Double income, no kids yet. Said of a relationship.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. informal small and insignificant; shabby or unimpressive.
- adj. British informal pretty and neat; fashionable or well-dressed.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. small and insignificant
- n. a small locomotive
- adj. (British informal) pretty and neat
Etymologies
- Probably from Scots dink, neat, trim. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“But the advantage now of having all of those proposals that maybe were sometimes described as being "dinky" -- (laughter) -- is that they now add up to some serious work that we can put before the Congress in the form of legislative proposals.”
“I suspect that the reason wards are 'dinky' in Boise and not very large around here is precisely because of density.”
Mysterious Dirty Tricks Mailer Reminds South Carolinians About Romney's Mormonism
“I thought the fireplace was kind of dinky and squishy-looking.”
“He still calls his own his "dinky" and insists that Nate's be called a dinky or dink too.”
“Here, the car-designed by set designer John Arnone-is some kind of dinky cartoon version, like a covered golf cart.”
“A derrick operating a clam-shell unloaded the sand and gravel into a small hopper, discharging into dump cars operated by a "dinky" up an incline, passing over sand and gravel storage bins.”
“Puffing on the single-gauge track was a "dinky" engine, coupled to a flat car.”
“Telephone and telegraph wires run through the trenches and even railroad tracks are laid so that small engines go whirring through the ditches like "dinky" locomotives in a coal mine.”
“Several white players were upset that Brown and two other black players - Dick Lane, known as Night Train, and Danny Lewis - had to stay in a "dinky" hotel away from their teammates.”
“Robbins concedes the pine flycatcher is "dinky," that its distinguishing features come down to a few feathers combined with a particular call.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘dinky’.
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by train
Bits and pieces of train engines, cars and carriages. Terms for various types of trains and train cars live here toot I mean too.
jaw-bit, truck-bolster, arch-bar, car-truck, swing-motion, horn-plate, pedestal, axle-guard, car-body, rolling-stock, swing-hanger, spring-plank and 140 more...
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Inky
One of those nutso navel-fluff ruzuzu lists.
Inky, stinky, kinky, pinky, dinky, minky, tiddly-winky, slinky, clinky, ratfinky, kitchen-sinky, Hinky Dinky and 59 more...
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Vuppies
Various urban professionals, and other such pies. (related to wealth, labor, class, etc.)
yuppie, duppie, luppie, yettie, skippie, huppie, scuppie, yupster, buppie, guppie, yippie, zippie and 65 more...
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Small stuff
Adjectives that describe small objects.
small, tiny, diminutive, little, dinky, itsy-bitsy, itty-bitty, teeny, bitsy, bitty, bantam, teensy and 23 more...
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Dean Koontz Life Expectancy
Words I'm learning or investigating that I found by reading Life Expectancy (not all words are in the book).
chutzpah, luminous, torchieres, dunderheaded, inane, lummox, fox-trot, rumba, cha-cha, tango, swing, flub and 37 more...
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Bird Wirds: Sundry Nicknames
A list of birders' "shorthand" names, traditional nicknames, non-English names, and obsolete names for feathered creatures worldwide.
Interesting blog entry here on naming U.S. birds.welsh ambassador, goatsucker, french magpie, timberdoodle, butterbutt, popinjay, logcock, old cranky, long john, sprog, butterbum, wedgie and 697 more...
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ulyssean
... as in "by James Joyce"
stately, plump, aloft, gurgling, untonsured, chrysostomos, jowl, parapet, jesuit, indigestion, scutter, noserag and 688 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, D
dodecahedron, din, diglyceride, dysphotopsia, decoction, deboss, diatonic, dithyramb, divagate, discalced, dishdasha, daft and 281 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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Jacqueline's Words
glittery, horny, amazing, wanderlust, forlorn, lustily, nonchalant, cool, passive, submissive, roundabout, carousel and 558 more...
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Words next
patrimony, cacophony, fearsome, coruscating, coruscating, coruscating, dolomite, dolorous, transdermal, chatty cathy, chatterbox, incessantly and 249 more...
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EN - funny (single) words
"Fornication" is not equal to "formication".
Words with funny meaning, spelling or both.biffy, bibcock, barratry, bastinado, bezonian, bibliobibuli, bodewash, boeotian, boondoggle, borborygmic, bosky, brobdingnagian and 729 more...
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Size Matters!
The long and the short of it.
gargantuan, small-minded, infinitesimal, dinky, microscopy, innumerable, slew, surfeit, behemoth, bijou, critical mass, whopping and 8 more...
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JakeMV's Words
duffel, schadenfreude, boisterous, belligerent, stinky, bric-a-brac, dong, flagellum, splat, janky, brash, hubris and 37 more...
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Nicknames for My Dogs
They have perfectly suitable doggy names. We just call them other things sometimes.
el pero negro, jerk, frankenpuppy, galumphing idiot, wankerdog, boss dog, weiner dog, miss lugubrious, bitch, who's-a-goo'-boy, who's-a-goo'-girl, freak and 29 more...
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suunflowerss's Words
bakery, crisp, pollywog, crescent, chrysanthemum, aluminum, turquoise, bazooka, crotch rocket, paisley, vermouth, dildo and 107 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for dinky.
chained_bear And for my dog... Apr 24, 2009
reesetee Nickname for the Ruddy Duck. Apr 24, 2009
sonofgroucho Is also an acronym for double income no kids yet. This is a term used to describe those who defer parenthood, usually for financial reasons. Dec 9, 2007
brtom "She had four dinky sets, with awfully pretty stitchery, three garments and nighties extra, and each set slotted with different coloured ribbons ..."
Joyce, Ulysses, 13 Jan 14, 2007