# fiddle
## English
### Etymology

From Middle English fithele, from Old English *fiþele, from Proto-West Germanic *fiþulā, from Proto-Germanic *fiþulǭ (“fiddle”), of uncertain etymology. Some contest that the Germanic terms are borrowed variations of Late Latin vitula (see viola); others contest that the word has a separate origin within Germanic languages, and still others believe that the Late Latin term for the stringed instrument is a borrowing from Germanic as a change of Latin t to Germanic þ is highly improbable, yet Germanic þ to Latin t is well documented (see troop, Teobaldo, etc.). Cognate with Old High German fidula (German Fiedel), Middle Dutch vedele (Dutch vedel, veel), Old Norse fiðla (Icelandic fiðla, Danish fiddel, Norwegian fela, Swedish fela).
The change from /ðl/ to /dl/ in modern English is regular; compare Bedlam, staddle, swaddle (in brothel, it was prevented; see that entry for discussion).

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈfɪd(ə)l/
* (General American) enPR: fĭdʹl, IPA: /ˈfɪdl̩/, [ˈfɪɾl̩]
* Audio (US):(file)
* Audio (General Australian):(file)
* Hyphenation: fid‧dle
* Rhymes: -ɪdəl

### Noun

fiddle (plural fiddles)
* A violin, a small unfretted stringed instrument with four strings tuned (lowest to highest) G-D-A-E, usually held against the chin, shoulder, chest or on the upper thigh and played with a bow (see also usage notes below).
** c. 1275, Layamon, Brut, Cotton Caligula A.IX, l. 3490:
    ...Of harpe & of salteriun. of fiðele & of coriun...
** 1979, Charlie Daniels et al., The Devil Went Down to Georgia:Johnny, rosin up your bow and play your fiddle hard 'Cause Hell's broke loose in Georgia an' the Devil deals the cards...
    When I play it like this, it's a fiddle; when I play it like that, it's a violin.
* (usually proscribed) Any of various other bowed stringed instruments, particularly those of the violin family when played non-classically.
** 1864, William Sandys et al., The History of the Violin...‎, page 38:The fiddle of these early times, however, was the viol and not our modern violin.
* A violinist, or fiddler, in a band.
    He is first fiddle in the band.
* Something resembling a violin, or fiddle, in shape, particularly:
** (biology) A dock (Rumex pulcher) with leaves supposed to resemble the musical instrument.
** A long pole pulled by a draft animal to drag loose straw, hay, etc.
** A rack for drying pottery after glazing.
* (figurative) A clown; an unserious person entertaining a group.
** 1693, John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, page 208:You would not have your Son the Fiddle to every jovial Company.
* (figurative) Unskillful or unartful behavior, particularly when showy and superficially pleasing.
** (informal) A scam; a fraud or swindle.
    There was some kind of fiddle going on at that company, and several of the directors were arrested.
*** 1947 June 22, People, p. 4:
    Says Bevin: 'I want peace... and we shan't get it unless we deal with one another as friends. I will be a party to no fiddles.'
*** 1959 Sept. 4, The Spectator, p. 297:
    I know you'll think this is one of my fiddles. At my last parish we raffled a horse and trap,... a clothes horse and a mousetrap.
** (informal) A workaround; a quick and less than perfect solution for some flaw or problem.
    That parameter setting is just a fiddle to make the lighting look right.
* (especially nautical) Any rail or device that prevents items from sliding off a table, stove, etc. in rough water.
** 1962 September, P. Ransome-Wallis, “The Talgo trains of Spain”, in Modern Railways, page 188:The meal is served on special trays which slot into the arms of airline-type seats of the passenger coaches. The trays have fiddles for each of the plates, cups and glasses, and the crockery is so well-designed that it is seldom any of the contents get spilled.
* (UK slang, obsolete) An arrest warrant.
* (UK slang, obsolete) A watchman's rattle.
* (UK slang, obsolete) A trifling amount.
    Done at a fiddle.

#### Usage notes

* The distinction between violins and fiddles is typically contextual and cultural. The same instrument is considered a violin when playing classical music in formal settings, a fiddle when playing folk or country music, and variously described in other settings (such as jazz and rock) depending whichever term seems more appropriate to the speaker. Use of fiddle long predates the 16th century development of the modern violin but its use for other string instruments is almost obsolete; its use for other instruments of the violin family usually requires some explanatory adjective, such as bass fiddle.

#### Derived terms

* Apache fiddle
* bass fiddle
* bull fiddle
* face as long as a fiddle
* face like a fiddle
* face made of a fiddle
* fiddleback
* fiddleback wood
* fiddle beetle
* fiddle block
* fiddle-boat
* fiddle-bow
* fiddle-brained
* fiddle brake
* fiddle-case
* fiddlecome
* fiddle-come-faddle
* fiddledeedee
* fiddle-dock
* fiddle-drill
* fiddle-fabricant
* fiddle face
* fiddle-faced
* fiddle factor
* fiddle-faddle
* fiddle-fancier
* fiddle-fish
* fiddle-flanked
* fiddle-footed
* fiddle-grass
* fiddlehead
* fiddle-holder
* fiddle idol
* fiddleist
* fiddleleaf
* fiddle-lipped
* fiddle-lore
* fiddle-lover
* fiddle-make
* fiddle-maker
* fiddle-making
* fiddlement
* fiddleneck
* fiddle-pattern
* fiddle-patterned
* fiddler
* fiddler crab
* fiddler's money
* fiddlery
* fiddles
* fiddle-scraping
* fiddle-shaped
* fiddlesome
* fiddlestick
* fiddlesticks
* fiddlestring
* fiddlewood
* fiddley
* fiddle yard
* fiddley-did
* fiddliness
* fiddlist
* fiddly
* fine as a fiddle
* first fiddle
* fit as a fiddle
* guitar fiddle
* hang up one's fiddle, hang up one's fiddle when one comes home
* Hardanger fiddle, Hardanger-fiddle
* horsehead fiddle
* keyed fiddle
* lead fiddle
* macaroni fiddle
* on the fiddle
* phonofiddle
* play first fiddle
* play second fiddle
* play someone like a bass fiddle
* play someone like a fiddle
* play third fiddle
* Scotch fiddle
* second fiddle
* spike fiddle
* taro-patch fiddle
* there's many a good tune played on an old fiddle
* troubadour fiddle
* Welsh fiddle
* wheel fiddle

#### Descendants

* → Swahili: fidla

#### Translations
### Verb

fiddle (third-person singular simple present fiddles, present participle fiddling, simple past and past participle fiddled)
* (intransitive) To play the fiddle or violin, particularly in a folk or country style.
    to fiddle while Rome burns
** 1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC:Themistocles […] said he could not fiddle, but yet he could make a small town a great city.
* (informal, transitive) To fraudulently manipulate (records, accounts, etc.) in order to cheat or swindle.
    Fred was sacked when the auditors caught him fiddling the books.
* (intransitive) To fidget or play; to fuss; to idly amuse oneself, to act aimlessly, idly, or frivolously, particularly out of nervousness or restlessness; see also fiddle with.
    Sit up straight and stop fiddling!
** 1530, John Palsgrave, Lesclarcissement, page 549:Loke you fydell nat with your handes whan your maister speketh to you.
** 1663 July 23 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, “July 13th, 1663”, in Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volume III, London: George Bell & Sons […]; Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Co., published 1893, →OCLC:[…] talking, and fiddling with their hats and feathers […]
** 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Eternal City”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 425:Yossarian went along in Milo Minderbinder's speeding M & M staff car to police headquarters to meet a swarthy, untidy police commissioner with a narrow black mustache and unbuttoned tunic who was fiddling with a stout woman with warts and two chins when they entered his office and who greeted Milo with warm surprise and bowed and scraped in obscene servility as though Milo were some elegant marquis.
* (informal, intransitive) Synonym of tinker (“to make small adjustments or improvements”); see also fiddle with.
    Coordinate term: fettle
    I don't exactly know how to fix this lawnmower; I'm really just fiddling.
* (intransitive, UK, slang, obsolete) To do odd jobs for money.
** 1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, published 1861:A cake-seller told me that a little while before I saw him a lad of twelve or so had consumed a shilling’s worth of cakes and pastry, as he had got a shilling by “fiddling;” not, be it understood, by the exercise of any musical skill, for “fiddling,” among the initiated, means the holding of horses, or the performing of any odd jobs.

#### Derived terms

* fiddle about
* fiddle around
* fiddle away
* fiddlefart
* fiddlefuck
* fiddler
* fiddle the books
* fiddle while Rome burns
* fiddle with
* refiddle
* twiddle

#### Translations
### Interjection

fiddle
* Synonym of fiddlesticks or euphemism for fuck.
    Oh, fiddle. I left my whip in the stable.

### References

* Jordan, Richard (1974) Eugene Crook, transl., Handbook of the Middle English Grammar: Phonology (Janua Linguarum; 214)‎, The Hague: Mouton & Co. N.V., →DOI, § 206, page 187.
* “fiddle, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.
* “fiddle, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.
* “fiddle”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.