Word.ws English Dictionary

fiddle with

fiddle with verb: to manipulate or toy with (an object), especially in a nervous, restless or aimless manner.

Verb

fiddle with (third-person singular simple present fiddles with, present participle fiddling with, simple past and past participle fiddled with)

  1. (transitive) To manipulate or toy with (an object), especially in a nervous, restless or aimless manner.
    • Stop fiddling with your food!
    Synonyms:
    tweak, adjust, tinker
  2. (transitive) To tinker with: to make small adjustments or improvements to (something), especially in an experimental or unskilled manner.
    • If you fiddle with the controls, you might be able to get a better TV picture.
    • The deadline for my report is two o'clock, but I'm still fiddling with it.
  3. (figuratively, transitive) To manipulate in order to gain something for oneself.
    • Don't Fiddle With Sellers Who Have No Equity2004, Jay P. DeCima, Start Small, Profit Big in Real Estate, page 65
    Synonyms:
    mess with
  4. (colloquial, euphemistic, reflexive, transitive, usually) To masturbate.
    • I was in the Woodley Park–Zoo in D.C. and mom and sister were waiting to see the pandas, so me and my pops broke away to check out the monkey house. Well, there was a beautiful teacher, I mean we're talking a ten, she was blond, had a low-cut dress on, just gorgeous. And she has about eight or nine...2006 May 9, Penn Jillette, Michael Goudeau, quoting Chris, 22:22 from the start, in Penn Radio

Examples of fiddle with in a sentence

  • Fiddle with vertical VOLT/DIV knob until signal comes into view.2000, Paul Scherz, Practical electronics for inventors, page 452:
  • As technology got better, he'd go back and fiddle with them, convinced he could clean them up enough for release.2007, Sheryl J. Anderson, Killer Riff, page 49:

Synonyms of fiddle with

All synonyms of fiddle with

Forms of fiddle with

third-person singular presentfiddles with
present participlefiddling with
past participlefiddled with
pastfiddled with

Words formed from fiddle with

Questions about fiddle with

What does fiddle with mean?
Fiddle with means to manipulate or toy with (an object), especially in a nervous, restless or aimless manner.
How do you use fiddle with in a sentence?
Fiddle with vertical VOLT/DIV knob until signal comes into view.
What part of speech is fiddle with?
Fiddle with is a verb.
What is the past tense of fiddle with?
The past tense of fiddle with is fiddled with.

Words near fiddle with in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fiddle with (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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Cite this entry: “fiddle with.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fiddle_with. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.