fiddling

Verb

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

1. (intransitive) To play the fiddle or violin, particularly in a folk or country style.
   • to fiddle while Rome burns
2. (informal, transitive) To fraudulently manipulate (records, accounts, etc.) in order to cheat or swindle.
   • Fred was sacked when the auditors caught him fiddling the books.
3. (intransitive) To fidget or play; to fuss; to idly amuse oneself, to act aimlessly, idly, or frivolously, particularly out of nervousness or restlessness; see also fiddle with.
   • Sit up straight and stop fiddling!
4. (informal, intransitive) Synonym of tinker (“to make small adjustments or improvements”); see also fiddle with.
   • I don't exactly know how to fix this lawnmower; I'm really just fiddling.

   Synonyms:

   tinker

5. (UK, intransitive, obsolete, slang) To do odd jobs for money.
   • A cake-seller told me that a little while before I saw him a lad of twelve or so had consumed a shilling’s worth of cakes and pastry, as he had got a shilling by “fiddling;” not, be it understood, by the exercise of any musical skill, for “fiddling,” among the initiated, means the holding of...1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, published 1861

See all 20 meanings of fiddle