Citations:tiddlywinks

English citations of tiddlywinks

Noun

					1890 1891 1892 1894	1909 1922 1926 1937 1957 1958 1969
ME «	15th c.	16th c.	17th c.	18th c.	19th c.	20th c.	21st c.

1. (tiddlywinks, also attributively) 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.
   • [1890 January 18, M. D., “Queries. [Kiddlewink.]”, in Notes and Queries: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, General Readers, etc., volume IX (7th Series), number 212, London: Published […] [b]y John C. Francis, →OCLC, page 48, column 2:

     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."]

   • 1891 December 6, Macy’s advertisement, The New York Times, page 1:

     All the newest and most popular games of the season, including […] TIDDLE DE WINKS […]

   • 1892: Journal of Lady Emily (Lytton) Lutyens, as published in A Blessed Girl (1953)

• After dinner we all played the most exciting game ever invented, called Tiddleywinks.

1. • 1894 August, Henrietta O[ctavia] Barnett, “The Home or the Barrack for the Children of the State”, in The Contemporary Review, volume LXVI, London: Isbister and Company […], →OCLC, page 246:

     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.

   • 1909, Century Dictionary Supplement:

     tiddledewinks, n. A trivial game in which the players try to make small counters jump into a box, by pressing on their edges with another counter.

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 17: Ithaca]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC, part III [Nostos], page 638:

     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): […]

   • 1926 September, “The Bookman’s Guide to Fiction”, in John Farrar, editor, The Bookman, volume LXIV, number 1, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC, page 90, column 1:

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

   • 1937: Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconvential English

     Tiddlywinks is considered a feeble, futile game.

   • 1957 December 17, The Times, London:

     The subtle art of tiddlywinks. Here all depends upon the steady hand, the strong nerve, the experienced eye... Tempers are never lost.

   • 1958, The Observer Saying of the Year, London:

     We look to tiddlywinks to get us back to the primeval simplicity of life. — Rev. E. A. Willis

   • 1969 September, Playboy, page 195:

     MIT's two saving graces are the tiddlywinks championship of North America and incredible graffiti.

2. (figuratively) Especially in the form to play tiddlywinks: a meaningless or unimportant activity.