rinky dink, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

rinky dink n.

also rinky-do

[ety. unknown]

1. (US) a swindle, a deception; also as v. rinky-dink, to swindle; often as give someone the rinky-dink

1902		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 69: Mr J Wise Gives Archie The ‘Rinky Dink’.
1903		Truth (US) I 231/1: The few who are interested always get the ‘rinky dink,’ as was said at the Council meeting this week. And if the rest of the people don't like being ‘rinky dinked’ they have themselves to blame for it.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 336: I seen her an’ a couple dames who tries to hand her the rinky-dink go to the floor, an’ Maggie beat ’em up scand’lous.
1911		H. Day Skipper and Skipped 54: We’ll drownd ye where ye hang [...] before we’ll let you or any other pirate rinky-dink us out of what belongs to us.
1912		A.H. Lewis Apaches of N.Y. 265: They was lyin’ [...] an’ givin’ each other th’ rinkey-dink in th’ old days same as now.
1966		‘Tom Pendleton’ Iron Orchard (1967) 243: By stalling off suppliers and maybe pulling the Coker City rinky-do on wages. [Ibid.] 309: Don’t ever try to rinky-doo Mr. Delano.

2. (US) an insignificant person.

1910		O. Johnson Varmint 27: Well, Rinky Dink, you’ve got a rotten name.
1960		J. Brosnan Long Season viii: ‘Glossary’ [...] Rinky-Dinks [:] On any ball club those players (excluding pitchers) who play irregularly and infrequently.
1970		Harper’s Mag. Apr. 38: If the Senate Majority Leader’s blood brother couldn’t get through, how was a rinky-dink to make connections?
1984		W.D. Myers Outside Shot 145: Sometimes you play against a team of rinky-dinks and you play just enough to win.
2000		G.V. Higgins At End of Day (2001) 92: Fuckin’ Albie — just another one those rinky-dinks we never should’ve taken on.

3. that which is outdated, unfashionable.

1979

E. Torres After Hours 41: A Spike Jones band playin’ rinky-dink [i.e. music] behind me.

4. (US campus) an easy course.

1967–8

Baker et al. CUSS.

5. a second rate object.

1962

R. Serling ‘The Whole Truth’ in New Stories from the Twilight Zone 4: You don’t want a new car. You don’t want one of these rinky-dinks slapped together on an assembly line.

6. see dink n.² (5)

In phrases

give someone the rinky-dink (v.)

1. (US) to cheat, to swindle.

1900		Special Cttee [...] to investigate the public offices and departments of the city of NY 2352: I felt and saw i was robbed and i went to look after an officer [...] I said, ‘Officer, I have got the rinky-dink.’- He knew what it meant all right. He said, ‘Where? Down at that wench house?’.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 111: This noo Nick Carter gives him the rinkydink an’ won’t let him come home!
1906		Minneapolis Jrnl (MN) 14 Jan. 39/3: The public was given the rinky-dink, the double cross, the high roll.

2. to deride, to treat badly.

1897		Lafayette Gaz. (LA) 26 June 2/3: And so, instead of being hunk, / He got the rinky-dink.
1900		Harper's Mag. 101 102/1: Say! me pals figured out dat I was croisy, or had got de Salvation Army fever, and I gets de rinky-dink shake from de gang for fair .
1905		Pearson’s Mag. 97: Gee, wouldn’t it be fierce to get the rinky-dink for this, when I ain’t had nothing to do with it?
1914		N.Y. Tribune 14 Apr. 10/4: Herzog got the rinky-dink, / And then there were four.

put the rink-dinky in (v.)

to interfere with, to render defective.


1907		N.R. Gilbert Affair at Pine Court 181: I cut the wire to the Adirondack Club all to hell [...] and I put the rinky-dink in the line to Sumac.