tiddlywinks

Meanings

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

1. plural of tiddlywink

1. third-person singular simple present indicative of tiddlywink

Etymology

From tiddlywink + -s, possibly from tiddly (“(informal) little, tiny”) + wink (“blinking of one eye”), perhaps borrowed from tiddlywink, etymology 1 (“unlicensed beerhouse or pawnshop; game played using dominoes”, etc.). The game was patented by a British bank clerk, Joseph Assheton Fincher (1863–1900), on 19 October 1889, and the name Tiddledy-Winks trademarked by him the same year. Tiddlywinks is the preferred modern spelling; the earliest known use of this spelling dates from 1894.