faddle

Verb

faddle (third-person singular simple present faddles, present participle faddling, simple past and past participle faddled)

1. To fiddle (play aimlessly).
   • I am afraid I must be at bottom, what a cheerful Indian critic has dubbed me, "a faddling hedonist" […]1879, Robert Louis Stevenson, quoting an anonymous reviewer in the Allahabad Pioneer, June 27, 1878, “Our Lady of the Snows – The Boarders”, in Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, page 99
   • He faddles over the needless, such as hanging maps up on the walls in the section and putting inkpots on the mantelpiece.1906, The Building News and Engineering Journal, volume 91, page 896

   Synonyms:

   fiddle

2. (UK, dated) To dote on.
   • Even then, when nurse is ready to take baby out for a walk, properly wrapped up, faddling Mamma comes to examine, if not a little corner remains to be closed to the air.1893, Sebastian Kneipp, My Water-cure Tested for Than 35 Years and Published for the Cure of Diseases and the Preservation of Health, page 26
   • “The last year she spent faddling at Aunt Mai's […] I am not sure this is necessary to her happiness, this faddling after other people. Now, to faddle after folk, who don't want you, is madness . . . but to faddle after those that do is very good employment. Now […] you are the very person for her...1950, Cecil Woodham-Smith, quoting Mary Elizabeth Mohl, Florence Nightingale 1820-1910, page 435