fiddle

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   To touch or play with something with your fingers, often nervously or aimlessly.

   Stop fiddling with your pen and pay attention.

2. 2
   noun

   A violin, especially when used for folk or traditional music.

   He learned to play the fiddle as a child.

3. 3
   verb

   To dishonestly change figures or records to get money illegally.

   He was caught fiddling the company accounts.

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, trousers, Teobaldo, etc.). Cognate with Old High Ge…

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