tiddlywinks

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