Other forms: fiddling, fiddles
To fiddle is to fuss with something small using your fingers, usually to no purpose. A pen, a ring, a loose thread.
It takes with. The word suggests restlessness or nerves rather than repair, though fiddling with a setting can mean adjusting it. British English has a second sense meaning to cheat, so fiddling the accounts or fiddling expenses is a mild word for fraud. And a fiddle is a violin, especially in folk music. Fit as a fiddle means in excellent health.
1verbfiddleTo touch or handle something restlessly with the fingers.
“He fiddled with his cufflinks throughout the speech.”
2verbfalsifyTo falsify accounts or claims dishonestly.
“He had been fiddling the expenses for years.”
3nounviolinA violin, especially in folk music.
“She plays the fiddle in a ceilidh band.”
Proto-Germanic
*fiþulǭ — fiddle
Proto-West Germanic
*fiþulā
Old English
*fiþele
Middle English
fithele
English, today
fiddle
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 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, trousers, 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 to in modern English is regular; compare Bedlam, staddle, swaddle (in brothel, it was prevented; see that entry for discussion).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA