What's the difference between piddle and tinkle?

Piddle


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To deal in trifles; to concern one's self with trivial matters rather than with those that are important.
  • (v. i.) To be squeamishly nice about one's food.
  • (v. i.) To urinate; -- child's word.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But I'd be piddling myself laughing and couldn't get myself together, meaning there were many retakes.
  • (2) A pugnacious Nick Clegg really got the Remain side going when he accused outers of behaving as if Britain was just “a piddling little island”, always being bullied by Brussels.
  • (3) Why would she give up her cosy life as a columnist and novelist working from home in Notting Hill to be editor of a title she described in the documentary as "a piddling magazine no one cares about or buys"?
  • (4) Hunt is locked into a no-win confrontation about a piddling amount of cash that – if the ballot that goes out tomorrow supports strike action, as it looks as if it will – could cost hundreds of lives.
  • (5) We do the best we can all day, every day to produce great product on piddling budgets and they call that success.
  • (6) That the Thames triumphed over competition from the mighty Amazon and idyllic rural waterways such as the Piddle in Dorset, can be explained by the prize's focus on restored and well-managed rivers.
  • (7) Aside from that, we see only two solutions: grab our culture by the lapels and convince everyone it’s fine to sit down for five piddling little minutes to have a coffee, or convince people to go down the reusable route.
  • (8) But the culture budget is pretty piddling anyway and transport argues that it is supposed to deliver a lot of the infrastructure spending that the coalition is now committed to increasing.
  • (9) Later she says of the title: "In the real world this is a piddling little magazine that nobody cares about.
  • (10) "The Piddle and the Amazon don't have those environmental pressures – the sewage, the industry."

Tinkle


Definition:

  • (n.) The common guillemot.
  • (v. i.) To make, or give forth, small, quick, sharp sounds, as a piece of metal does when struck; to clink.
  • (v. i.) To hear, or resound with, a small, sharp sound.
  • (v. t.) To cause to clonk, or make small, sharp, quick sounds.
  • (n.) A small, sharp, quick sound, as that made by striking metal.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) This is what we imagined: the becalmed beauty of the Whitsunday Passage, that spectacular collection of islands protectively nestled inside the Great Barrier Reef, safe from prevailing winds; bright blue languid days gliding over turquoise waters, taking turns at the tiller in our togs; finding our own private cove as the sun goes down; diving into warm pristine waters; the tinkling of intimate laughter; the fizz of champagne and the sizzle of prawns on the barbie.
  • (2) Look out for peregrine falcons and ravens riding the cliffupdraughts, and in spring listen for the tinkling songs of redstarts.
  • (3) The short teaser film, accompanied by that familiar tinkling soundtrack, showed no gameplay footage at all.
  • (4) Nonetheless, this is the first time I think I've seen it framed in such a "female" way and, as we are usually the ones being told not to "leave it too late", I have to admit that I almost cackled (young women have delicate, tinkling laughs, but feminists cackle, obviously).
  • (5) Cycle alongside Lake Shore Drive in the early morning and you will pass black church groups jogging, Asians playing cricket and the tinkling of masts in the marina.
  • (6) I knew I had to rethink everything.” Joining the Royal Court in 1957, he made his London directing debut with NF Simpson ’s A Resounding Tinkle, and scored an early success with John Osborne ’s Epitaph for George Dillon, which transferred to Broadway.
  • (7) His first play to be produced was A Resounding Tinkle (1957), which in its original two-act form won third prize in an Observer playwriting competition organised by Tynan and was produced as a Sunday night "without decor" production at the Royal Court.
  • (8) The muses holding up the balcony tittered and the huge chandelier, only just out of reach of Dodd's enormous tickling stick, tinkled with delight.
  • (9) But what other institutions could do with the tinkling of shattering glass?
  • (10) While passengers at Tiburtina, one of Rome’s main train stations and just a 10-minute ride from the Colosseum, tinkled on the station’s piano or stopped off for an ice cream, outside there were more urgent matters at hand.
  • (11) The tinkle of the flagpoles is about the only sound on the tarmac.
  • (12) The first few minutes of tense conversations and snow-shrouded Swedish landscapes are accompanied by wintry drones and tinkling bells.
  • (13) Despite this non-specific lust, he does have a girlfriend of sorts: the grotesque Margaret, whose "tinkle of tiny silver bells" laugh will freeze the heart of any would-be coquette.
  • (14) Inside, Lea and Alice lean on the desk, Magic FM tinkling on the radio.
  • (15) The short-form version of A Resounding Tinkle was this time paired with Gladly Otherwise, in which a furniture inspector asks householders about their absence of floor and is told that it's under the carpet ("making full use of it, I hope?").
  • (16) There are three distinct sounds of broken glass tinkling to the pavement from the shattered window, a small handful of thunks as he falls sideways to the ground, his laboured breathing, the chug of his boot heel finally connecting with the asphalt – even the pads of his fingers as they scrabble along the top of the window.
  • (17) As he bellowed down the phone to the Guardian today it was hard not to notice lounge music tinkling in the background – the soundtrack aboard Green's yacht off the Italian coast where he is entertaining Naomi Campbell and Leonardo DiCaprio this week.
  • (18) An extraordinary impact was rounded off in 1959 when Peter Cook – who owed much of his wild-eyed, raincoated monologist EL Wisty to Simpson – appeared at Cambridge in a student revival of the two-act A Resounding Tinkle, directed by John Bird.
  • (19) Slender cypress trees sway in the warm breeze, as the sound of wind chimes tinkles across the terraces.
  • (20) If you were growing up in the 70s and 80s, you probably moved without loyalty or much discernment between choc ices and Neapolitan blocks at home and a 99 Flake whenever you were in earshot of the melodious tinkling of Greensleeves.