fiddle

English

WOTD – 28 December 2009

A woman playing a fiddle.

John Brown's a-Hanging on a Sour Apple Tree

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 staddle, swaddle (in brothel, it was prevented; see that entry for discussion).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfɪd(ə)l/
• (General American) enPR: fĭdʹl, IPA^(key): /ˈfɪdl̩/, [ˈfɪɾl̩]

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: fid‧dle
• Rhymes: -ɪdəl

Noun

fiddle (plural fiddles)

1. Synonym of 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; the position of a violinist in a band; (usually proscribed) any of various bowed stringed instruments, particularly those of the violin family when played non-classically.
   • c. 1275, Layamon, Brut, Cotton Caligula A.IX, l. 3490:

     ...Of harpe & of salteriun. of fiðele & of coriun...

   • 1864, William Sandys et al., The History of the Violin...‎^[1], page 38:

     The fiddle of these early times, however, was the viol and not our modern violin.

   • 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.

2. (figurative) Synonym of 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.

3. (figurative) Unskillful or unartful behavior, particularly when showy and superficially pleasing.
   1. (chiefly US, dated slang) Synonym of scam, a fraud or swindle.
      • 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.

   2. (slang) Synonym of 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.

4. (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.

5. (UK slang, obsolete) Synonym of arrest warrant.
6. (UK slang, obsolete) Synonym of watchman's rattle.
7. (UK slang, obsolete) A trifling amount.

   Done at a fiddle.

8. Something resembling a violin in shape, particularly:
   1. (biology) A dock (Rumex pulcher) with leaves supposed to resemble the musical instrument.
   2. A long pole pulled by a draft animal to drag loose straw, hay, etc.
   3. A rack for drying pottery after glazing.

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
• 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-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
• have a face as long as a fiddle
• have one's face made of a fiddle
• horsehead fiddle
• keyed fiddle
• lead 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

nautical: device or rail for keeping items on a surface while at sea

• Catalan: balancera f
• Finnish: reunalista
• German: Schiffsgeländer n
• Italian: parapetto (it) m

Verb

fiddle (third-person singular simple present fiddles, present participle fiddling, simple past and past participle fiddled)

1. 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.

2. To fidget or play; to idly amuse oneself, to act aimlessly, idly, or frivolously, particularly out of nervousness or restlessness.

   Stop fiddling with your food. Either tell me what's wrong or just eat.

   • 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.

3. (informal) To cheat or swindle; to commit fraud.

   Fred was sacked when the auditors caught him fiddling the books.

5. (informal) Synonym of tinker (“to make small adjustments or improvements”).

   Coordinate term: fettle

   I needed to fiddle with these settings to get the image to look right.

Derived terms

terms derived from fiddle (verb)

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

Translations

to play the violin in a folk or informal way

• Czech: šumařit
• Dutch: fiedelen (nl)
• Finnish: vinguttaa viulua (derogative); soittaa viulua
• Hungarian: hegedül (hu)

to play aimlessly

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 摸索 (zh) (mōsuǒ, mōsuo), 盤弄／盘弄 (zh), 盤弄／盘弄 (zh) (pánnòng)

• Czech: marnit
• Finnish: koheltaa (fi), haaskata (fi), räplätä (fi)
• French: tripoter (fr)
• German: fummeln (de)
• Japanese: いじり回す (いじりまわす, ijirimawasu)
• Maori: rāwekeweke, rahurahu, raukoti
• Portuguese: vadiar (pt)
• Russian: тра́тить вре́мя по́пусту impf (trátitʹ vrémja pópustu), тереби́ть (ru) impf (terebítʹ) (to toy, to trifle with something), мять (ru) impf (mjatʹ)

Interjection

fiddle

1. (obsolete) Synonym of fiddlesticks.

   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)‎^[2], The Hague: Mouton & Co. N.V., →DOI, § 206, page 187.
• “fiddle, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2021.
• “fiddle, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2021.
• “fiddle”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.