Word.ws English Dictionary

fiddle-faddle

fiddle-faddle noun: nonsense.

Noun

fiddle-faddle (uncountable)

  1. nonsense
    • I can understand why people read horoscopes, but for me it's a bunch of fiddle-faddle.
    • These foolish Mistresses do so hang about ye, so whimper, and so hug, I know it Gentlemen, and so intice ye, now ye are i’th’ bud;
      and that sweet tilting war, with eyes and kisses, th’ alarms of soft vows, and sighs, and fiddle faddles, spoils all our trade:
      you must forget these knick knacks, a...1679 Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher: Fifty Comedies and Tragedies. The Humourous Lieutenant. p. 190
    Synonyms:
    nonsense

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive) To trifle; to dally.
    • The cur foretells the knell of parting day;
      The loafing herd winds slowly o'er the lea;
      The wise man homeward plods; I only stay
      To fiddle-faddle in a minor key.1911 Ambrose Bierce, The devil's dictionary. Neale Publishing, 1909-1912 The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce: Volume VII p. 88. ELEGY, n. A composition in verse, in which, without employing any of...

Adjective

fiddle-faddle (comparative more fiddle-faddle, superlative most fiddle-faddle)

  1. (intransitive) Trifling; dallying; inclined to fuss about trifles.
    • I think, quoth Corporal Trim, with humble submission to your Honour’s better judgment,——that these ravelins, bastions, curtins, and hornworks, make but a poor, contemptible, fiddle-faddle piece of work of it here upon paper, compared to what your Honour and I could make of it were we in the country...1659, Laurence Sterne, chapter XXX, in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
    • The witnesses made oath that they had heard some of the liverymen frequently railing at their mistress. They said she was a troublesome fiddle-faddle old woman, and so ceremonious that there was no bearing of her. They were so plagued with bowing and cringing as they went in and out of the room...1712 John Arbuthnot. The History of John Bull: Oxford University Press 1976 →ISBN p.68

fiddle-faddle meaning in Tamil

fiddle-faddle in Tamil

அற்பப்பொருள், சிறு செய்தி, சோம்பேறி, அற்பமான, சிறுதிறமான, வேடிக்கை விளையாட்டுச் செய்

Synonyms of fiddle-faddle

Forms of fiddle-faddle

Noun
alternative formfiddlefaddle
Verb
third-person singular presentfiddle-faddles
present participlefiddle-faddling
past participlefiddle-faddled
pastfiddle-faddled
Adjective
comparativemore fiddle-faddle
superlativemost fiddle-faddle

Words formed from fiddle-faddle

Questions about fiddle-faddle

What does fiddle-faddle mean?
Fiddle-faddle means nonsense.
What is fiddle-faddle in Tamil?
Fiddle-faddle in Tamil is அற்பப்பொருள், சிறு செய்தி, சோம்பேறி. See Fiddle-faddle meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is fiddle-faddle?
Fiddle-faddle can be a noun, a verb or an adjective.

Words near fiddle-faddle in the dictionary

  1. fiddle the books
  2. fiddle while Rome burns
  3. fiddle with
  4. fiddle yard
  5. fiddle yards
  6. fiddle-faddle
  7. fiddle-faddled
  8. fiddle-faddler
  9. fiddle-faddlers
  10. fiddle-faddles
  11. fiddle-faddling

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fiddle-faddle (page history and authors); fiddle-faddle (Tamil Wiktionary) (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-fiddle-faddle.ogg.

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