Meaning of tiddlywinks | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A competitive game in which the objective is to flick as many small discs (each called a tiddlywink or wink) as possible into a container (the pot) by pressing on their edges with a larger disc (a shooter or squidger), causing them to jump up from the surface on which they are placed.
   also, attributive, plural, plural-only
2. Especially in the form to play tiddlywinks: a meaningless or unimportant activity.
   figuratively, plural, plural-only

Equivalents

Examples

“Can any of your correspondents inform me what is the derivation of the word "kiddlewink," or "tiddledy winks"? A friend tells me in the Midland Counties it denotes a house where beer is sold without a licence. Lately a game has been introduced here bearing the name of "Tiddledywinks."”

“Recreation rooms were provided for both boys and girl, and the long winter evenings were anything but dreary, for when school was done and work over the children gathered in the brilliantly lit, hot-pipe-heated rooms and played draughts, bagatelle, lotto, or tiddly-winks.”

“What had been his hypothetical singular solutions? Parlour games (dominos, halma, tiddledywinks, spilikins, cup and ball, nap, spoil five, bezique, twentyfive, beggar my neighbour, draughts, chess or backgammon): […]”

“Mantrap—Sinclair Lewis—Harcourt, Brace. The great realist plays an amusing game of tiddlywinks in the north woods.”

CEFR level