fiddler

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fid·dle

(fĭd′l)

1. A violin, especially one used to play folk or country music.

2. Nautical A guardrail used on a table during rough weather to prevent things from slipping off.

3. Informal Nonsensical, trifling matters: "There are things that are important / beyond all this fiddle" (Marianne Moore).

4. Chiefly British An instance of cheating or swindling; a fraud.

v. fid·dled, fid·dling, fid·dles

v.intr.

1. To play a fiddle.

2. To touch or handle something in a nervous way: fiddled with the collar of his shirt as he spoke.

3. To make unskilled efforts at repairing or improving: fiddled with the broken toaster.

4. To meddle or tamper: a reporter who fiddled with the facts.

5. Chiefly British To commit a fraud, especially to steal from one's employer.

v.tr.

1. To play (a tune) on a fiddle.

2. Chiefly British To alter or falsify for dishonest gain: fiddled the figures in the report.

Phrasal Verbs:

fiddle around

To act foolishly, playfully, or without a clear sense of purpose: Quit fiddling around and get to work!

fiddle away

To waste or squander: fiddled away the morning browsing the internet.

[Middle English fidle, from Old English fithele.]

fid′dler n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

fiddler

(ˈfɪdlə)

1. (Music, other) a person who plays the fiddle, esp in folk music

2. (Animals) See fiddler crab

3. a person who wastes time or acts aimlessly

4. informal a cheat or petty rogue

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Switch to new thesaurus

Noun	1.	fiddler - a musician who plays the violin violinist instrumentalist, musician, player - someone who plays a musical instrument (as a profession)
	2.	fiddler - someone who manipulates in a nervous or unconscious manner twiddler manipulator - a person who handles things manually
	3.	fiddler - an unskilled person who tries to fix or mend tinkerer unskilled person - a person who lacks technical training

Translations

عازِف الكَمان

houslistapodfukář

fidusmagerspillemandsvindlerviolinspiller

Geiger

violoneux

hegedûs

fiîlari; fitlari; svindlari

violinista

felespiller spillemann

muzikant

kemancı

拉小提琴的人

fiddler

[ˈfɪdləʳ] N

1. (Mus) → violinista mf

2. (esp Brit) (= cheat) → tramposo/a m/f

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

fiddler

(Mus inf) → Geiger(in) m(f)

(inf: = cheat) → Schwindler(in) m(f), → Betrüger(in) m(f)

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

fiddler

[ˈfɪdləʳ] n

a. (Mus) → violinista m/f

b. (fam) (cheat) → imbroglione/a

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

fiddle

(ˈfidl) noun

1. a violin. She played the fiddle.

2. a dishonest business arrangement. He's working a fiddle over his taxes.

verb

1. to play a violin. He fiddled while they danced.

2. (with with) to make restless, aimless movements. Stop fiddling with your pencil!

3. to manage (money, accounts etc) dishonestly. She has been fiddling the accounts for years.

ˈfiddler noun

fiddler crab

a small crab, the male of which has an enlarged claw.

on the fiddle

dishonest. He's always on the fiddle.

References in classic literature ?

Two days after there came by a travelling fiddler, who began to play under the window and beg alms; and when the king heard him, he said,

View in context

But Pip loved life, and all life's peaceable securities; so that the panic-striking business in which he had somehow unaccountably become entrapped, had most sadly blurred his brightness; though, as ere long will be seen, what was thus temporarily subdued in him, in the end was destined to be luridly illumined by strange wild fires, that fictitiously showed him off to ten times the natural lustre with which in his native Tolland County in Connecticut, he had once enlivened many a fiddler's frolic on the green; and at melodious even-tide, with his gay ha-ha!

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And when the fiddler, peering into the front room, remarked to the pianist, "It's Burning Daylight," the waltz-time perceptibly quickened, and the dancers, catching the contagion, began to whirl about as if they really enjoyed it.

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In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches.

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Not a fiddler throughout the length and breadth of Scandinavia played as he did.

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Then they tucked the old man into a beauti- ful room, which was the spare room, and in the night some time he got powerful thirsty and clumb out on to the porch-roof and slid down a stanchion and traded his new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and clumb back again and had a good old time; and towards daylight he crawled out again, drunk as a fiddler, and rolled off the porch and broke his left arm in two places, and was most froze to death when somebody found him after sun-up.

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A fiddler who was present, and who appeared to act as the appointed minstrel of the company, forthwith struck up a Scotch reel; and that in tones so invigorating, that Hugh and his friend (who had both been drinking before) rose from their seats as by previous concert, and, to the great admiration of the assembled guests, performed an extemporaneous No-Popery Dance.

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The corpulent black fiddler, and his friend who plays the tambourine, stamp upon the boarding of the small raised orchestra in which they sit, and play a lively measure.

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Many a church member saw I, walking behind the music, that has danced in the same measure with me, when Somebody was fiddler, and, it might be, an Indian powwow or a Lapland wizard changing hands with us!

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Lords, indeed!-- why, at one of her swarreys I saw one of 'em speak to a dam fiddler --a fellar I despise.

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For, instead of a long train with royal diadems, I saw in one family two fiddlers, three spruce courtiers, and an Italian prelate.

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In a room above one of the stores, where a dance was to be held, the fiddlers tuned their instruments.