Word.ws English Dictionary

feddle

feddle noun: fiddle (musical instrument). Also the misspelling of fettle.

Noun (1)

feddle (plural feddles)

  1. (obsolete) Fiddle (musical instrument).
    • Is there ony soond mair meeserable an' peetifu' than the scrape o' a feddle, when it does na touch ony chord i' the human sensorium?1816, Thomas Love Peacock, Headlong Hall, →ISBN
    • I'll go immadiately an' buy Dermot's ould feddle.1854, Grace Greenwood, The Little Pilgrim - Volumes 1-3, page 27

Verb (1)

feddle (third-person singular simple present feddles, present participle feddling, simple past and past participle feddled)

  1. (obsolete) To fiddle (play the fiddle).
    • And my good companions and fellowe souldiours, if you will followe myne advise, laie aside your weapons, hang up your armours by the walles, and learne an other while (for your better advauncements) to pipe, to feddle, to synge, to daunce, to lye, to forge, to flatter, to cary tales, to set ruffe...1581, Barnaby Riche, Eight Novels Employed by English Dramatic Poets of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth.
    • In a Presbyterian Church where a bass viol had been smuggled or foisted into the choir, the old dominie startled the worshipers by calling upon them to "feddle and sing" the psalm.1882, George Dallas Albert, History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania

Adjective

feddle (not comparable)

  1. (regional, slang) Federal.
    • Uhmm, I don't know. Uhmm'but it looks like the feddle gummunt running ever'thing.1985, Roy Blount, What Men Don't Tell Women, page 78
    • If you're not working for the feddle gummint either directly (Assistant to Administrative Assistant Grade 3(a) in the U.S. Department of Administrative Assistance) or indirectly (lobbying, lawyering, feeding the beast, or living on bailout subsidies) you are a loser chump.2010, Michael Graham, That's No Angry Mob, That's My Mom, →ISBN

Noun (2)

feddle (plural feddles)

  1. (obsolete) A wanton; A spoiled person.
    • Sherwood defines CockNEY, by this word, niais, and mignot, cailnette, the former being, in Cotgrave, “a wanton, feddle, favourite, a dolling, dandling, darling,” and the latter, “foole, ninny, noddy, natural.”1822, The Gentleman's Magazine - Volume 92, Part 2; Volume 132, page 616
    • Chartier condemns the recreant scarceness of the laggard feddles who lowered their lineage, flung away their honour and like a quaking flock of sheep fled when they should have struck ;1919, James Hamilton Wylie, William Templeton Waugh, The Reign of Henry the Fifth: 1415-1416, page 203

Verb (2)

feddle (third-person singular simple present feddles, present participle feddling, simple past and past participle feddled)

  1. To fuss over.
    • Now here it was 12.20 and he had another 15,000 envelopes to feddle before he knocked off. If he feddled well, conscientiously, Gremm would apply a heavy, gluey mixture to the flap of each envelope, then allow it to dry.1982, Bulletin with Newsweek - Volume 102, page 55
    • As Mellors writes to Connie at the end of Lady Chatterley's Lover, a man has to fend and feddle for the best, and then trust in something beyond himself.1986, Gerald J. Butler, This Is Carbon
  2. (regional) To fiddle or fidget.
    • For example, a pipe smoker who spends all the time lighting matches and feddling with his pipe, is very distracting in an interview situation.1968, Oklahoma State Engineer, page 102

Also used as

feddle is also the misspelling of fettle.

Examples of feddle in a sentence

  • “Yer feddle, Tam, yer feddle!” (Tam gets it and comes down.)1899, Jon Templeton, The Romance of Robert Burns:
  • You'll run across a few who don't really carefor the 'feddle guvment' poking around.2011, J. L. Bryan, Tommy Nightmare, →ISBN:
  • “Cadelé”) and as a result has become a “feddle” (“A wanton,” RC, s.v.2010, William Shakespeare, The Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet, →ISBN:

Forms of feddle

Noun
pluralfeddles
Verb
third-person singular presentfeddles
present participlefeddling
past participlefeddled
pastfeddled

Origin of feddle

Eye dialect spelling descended from Middle English ffedle, fedele, fethil, fethele, variants of Middle English fithele, from Old English fiþele (“fiddle, viol, violin”). More at English fiddle.

Questions about feddle

What does feddle mean?
Feddle means fiddle (musical instrument).
How do you use feddle in a sentence?
“Yer feddle, Tam, yer feddle!” (Tam gets it and comes down.)
What part of speech is feddle?
Feddle can be a noun, a verb or an adjective.
What is the plural of feddle?
The plural of feddle is feddles.

Words near feddle in the dictionary

  1. fedded
  2. Feddersen
  3. Feddersens
  4. feddest
  5. fedding
  6. feddle
  7. feddled
  8. feddles
  9. feddling
  10. Fede
  11. fede ring

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: feddle (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-feddle.ogg.

Cite this entry: “feddle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/feddle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.