tweedle
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈtwiːdəl/
Forms: form: tweedles
form: tweedling
form: tweedled
form: tweedled
form: twidle
Etymology: said to be imitative, probably influenced by wheedle. Compare teedle, toodle, twiddle
Senses: examples: text: “Neaw, owd lad,” said he, as he screwed, first one peg, then another, and tweedled over little fits of wailing prelude, to get the tones he wanted.
ref: 1881, Edwin Waugh, Tufts of Heather - Volume 1, page 21:
text: Hark, —his tortured catgut squals He tickles every string, to every note He bends his pliant neck.—The fond yielding Maid Is tweedled into Love.
ref: 1905, William Bentley, The Diary of William Bentley D.D.,, page 267:
glosses: To handle lightly; said with reference to awkward playing on a fiddle.
examples: text: A fiddler brought in with him a body of lusty young fellows, whom he had tweedled into the service.
ref: 1717 January 10 (Gregorian calendar), Joseph Addison, “The Free-holder: No. 3. Sunday, December 30. [1716.]”, in The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq; […], volume IV, London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], published 1721, →OCLC:
text: But I tweedled him into letting you try, and here you are, a real member of the company.
ref: 1897, M. Gerturde Fulton, “When Vincent Played the Title Rôle”, in The Vassar Miscellany, volume 27, page 141:
synonyms: wheedle
glosses: To influence as if by fiddling; to coax; to allure.
examples: text: As it was, he tweedled the letter about in his hands for about five minutes, in a musing mood, and then stepped with it into Mr. Gammon's room.
ref: 1842, Samuel Warren, Ten Thousand A-year - Volume 1, page 59:
text: Bob Pirgivie now tweedled his thumbs in double quick time, and rapidly sent around queer horizontal glances under his shaggy brows.
ref: 1845 August 16, “Mrs. Mark Luke; or, West Country Exclusives”, in Littell's Living Age, volume 6, page 318:
text: He blinked slowly and tweedled his long brown mustache between his fingers.
ref: 2007, Bryan Butikofer, Rise of the Weaponsmaster, page 168:
text: Mary noticed Gaby absently tweedling the green ribbon hanging from her coat's buttonhole.
ref: 2008, Heidi Julavits, The Uses of Enchantment, page 51:
text: John Hammerkein, the bulky, slow-voiced communications officer, tweedled knobs in the far corner, under the bulletin board where the field's traffic pattern was posted.
ref: 2011, James Blish, Vor:
text: he (Driver) leaned back in his easy chair and playfully tweedled the ears of his devoted dog, who was curled up cat-like fashion in his master's lap.
ref: 2021, Ronald E. Goodwin, The New Deal and Texas History, page 63:
glosses: To twiddle.
examples: text: I am afraid that the knowing author of the “cracking a-crib” book would be flummoxed by tweedling.
ref: 1925, Eustace Jervis, Twenty-five Years in Six Prisons, page 17:
text: Girls, smokes, bit of smack, mossing, tweedling; a very democratic villain, Mr Salvatore.
ref: 2014, Dan Kavanagh, Duffy:
glosses: To sell fake jewellery as genuine.
examples: text: Yesterday I dined at the Percivals, and tweedled away upon a lovely harpsichord, and I was not bid to “mind my time.”
ref: 1861, Mary Granville Delany, The Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville, page 182:
text: Something tweedled, and Temple jumped. Every new car had its own literal bells and whistles that told you to take the key out of the ignition, or put your seat belt on, or to turn off your headlights.
ref: 2002, Carole Nelson Douglas, Cat in a Midnight Choir, page 90:
text: From deep inside my purse, my cell phone tweedled the opening bars of “Start Me Up.”
ref: 2010, Carolyn J. Rose, Mike Nettleton, Sometimes a Great Commotion:
glosses: To make a shrill or trilling sound
examples: text: Hurt that the Churts and I were exchanging fatuities over yet another second-rate painting instead of tweedling appreciatively over the extraordinary and beautiful child she was rocking on the other side of the room?
ref: 2009, Michael Frayn, Headlong:
text: "Oh, bien sur. Monsieur Raphael has only the kindest things to say," Azter tweedled. “Always.”
ref: 2009, Michael D. Lieberman, The Tale of Mark Levine, page 184:
glosses: To say in a high-pitched voice.
examples: text: That exemption was not intended to be a hair splitting elusive hope to be tweedled away by administrative interpretation.
ref: 1941, United States. Congress. House. Committee on the Judiciary, Hearings, page 248:
text: Intellectual tweedling is not within my character.
ref: 2008, Bernard Lown, Prescription for Survival:
text: There aren't many things that make playwriting easy, but the fluency of the English language is a tremendous help. Now if you choose to write in Ur Chinese, you haven't got that, you've only got the meaning of what is being said. And that was bracing, after years of tweedling round with words.
ref: 2015, Richard Boon, About Hare: The Playwright and the Work:
text: The organization is not to be tweedled with.
ref: 2021, Donald Barthelme, Charles McGrath, Donald Barthelme: Collected Stories:
glosses: To trifle or play.
examples: text: You all have undoubtedly noticed men in the rural pursuits tweedling along through life and finally end it all identical with what it was when they began: no better, no worse.
ref: 1907, Montana Horticultural Society, Report of Proceedings of the Annual Session, page 24:
text: moving slowly but moving nonetheless; and close enough that if I quit and he kept tweedling along, he would finish with more miles than I and I'd be even more depressed long after I stopped shivering. He did keep tweedling along, but so did I.
ref: 2009, Jef Mallett, Trizophrenia: Inside the Minds of a Triathlete:
text: What was discretion but chickenheartedness and a capitulation to age? If I tweedled back to Saratoga without doing anything, then I might as well kiss Rosemary good-bye.
ref: 2013, Stephen Dobyns, Saratoga Strongbox:
text: In the first part of the scene, the Frenchman dominates the monkey while tweedling along blithely as his Saint-Dominguan servants look with confusion on what surrounds them.
ref: 2019, Philip Barnard, Hilary Emmett, Stephen Shapiro, The Oxford Handbook of Charles Brockden Brown, page 85:
glosses: To go; to proceed without much enthusiasm.
examples: text: "I shall feel myself a failure as a chaperone surely," remarked Mrs.Green. "We think you a tremendous success," tweedled the twins.
ref: 1919, Nell Speed, Tripping With the Tucker Twins:
text: “Why, they're tweedling now, " said little Frankie and sure enough they were, and tweedling in perfect unison too, without any expression whatsoever.“
ref: 1934, Latham R. Reed, Frankie in Wonderland, page 17:
text: "[…] cold storage,” soothed Page Allison. “Not a chance,” tweedled the twins.
ref: 2021, Emma Speed Sampson, The Carter Girls of Carter House:
glosses: To move or speak in unison (like Tweedledum and Tweedledee)
raw_tags: of two people
Derived terms: Tweedledum and Tweedledee