Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (UK Und.) alert, sharp-sighted.

c.1850

Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.

2. (also dink) neat, trim, dainty.

1895		E. Townsend Chimmie Fadden Explains 51: De Duchess was singin one of dose dinky little French songs she sings.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 279: It was lonesome sitting by a dinky little stove in the bare rooms of country hotels.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 93: He had a dinky cloth cap of the same pattern.
1916		Somme-Times 31 July (2006) 118/2: We’ll dance some rather dinky fox-trot steps.
1917		Bay of Plenty Times (N.Z.) 24 Jan. 3/5: The prettiest things this summer are the dinky bathing caps at Mirrielees.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 335: As for undies they were Gerty’s chief care [...] She had four dinky sets, with awfully pretty stitchery.
1928		E. Milton To Kiss the Crocodile 62: He had to give up his dinky little rooms in King William Street.
1935		E. Anderson Hungry Men 190: They’re talking about that bird that had the dinky hat on.
1944		D. Runyon Runyon à la Carte 22: Most of them inhabit dinky little houses in the town.
1951		S. Lewis World So Wide 237: You fired him – remember? – for laughing when a dinky gilt chair busted under you.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
1972		K. Bonfiglioli Don’t Point That Thing at Me (1991) 22: A dinky little Japanese [...] robot camera.
1989		T. Blacker Fixx 50: The school handyman [...] sweeping up leaves like some dinky old gardener from a tale by Beatrix Potter.
1994		G. Disher Crosskill [ebook] The dinky Hondas and Corollas.
1996		A. Bennett diary in Untold Stories (2006) 186: Some dinky warders, in short-sleeved shirts, dark ties and epaulettes.
2000		Indep. Rev. 19 Jan. 11: Clad in dinky white wellies.
2012		D. O’Donnell Locked Ward (2013) 314: Ah bet you’d love tae get your hands on this dinky wee arse.

3. tiny, trifling.

1894		Forum 18 288/1: Her talents were too big for that dinky little town.
1898		W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 27 Feb. 8/3: See what a dinky little thing it ’ud be to lose, in your case. You wouldn’t miss it.
1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 93: Whole town looked to the last degree dinky and squalid.
1914		R. Lardner You Know Me Al (1984) 97: Allen has not got nothing but a dinky curve ball and a fast ball that looks like my slow one.
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 19: What do you let the girl chop the toast up into these dinky little chunks for? Can’t get your fist onto ’em.
1935		N. Algren ‘Kewpie Doll’ in Texas Stories (1995) 33: Why, we cu’d fill that dinky buggy out o’ this head sack an’ never miss a lump.
1948		J. Evans Halo For Satan (1949) 63: It was one of those dinky hunks of ribbon women call hats.
1958		E. Gilbert Vice Trap 72: I forgot to sound him if I was riding in that dinky parade.
1961		H. Ellison ‘This Is Jackie Spinning’ in Gentleman Junkie 69: I was with that dinky two hundred and fifty watter upstate.
1976		N. Thornburg Cutter and Bone (2001) 120: Grinning and pressing the flesh like any other good ole boy with a li’l dinky empire to husband.
1986		C. Hiaasen Tourist Season (1987) 367: A month’s worth of killing and all you’ve got to show for it is one dinky paragraph in Newsweek.
1989		M. Amis London Fields 276: The dinky boy-drama of skip-removal.
2001		T. Fontana ‘Revenge is Sweet’ Oz ser. 4 ep. 11 [TV script] That little dink farm town your from.
2003		J. Lethem Fortress of Solitude 173: The secret’s inside the dinky showroom, practically an afterthought.
2018		T. Pluck ‘Cronus Club’ in Life During Wartime 38: Some dinky country’s spirit animal, delicately seared over coals.