Word.ws English Dictionary

played second fiddle

played second fiddle is the simple past and past participle of play second fiddle.

Meaning of play second fiddle

Verb

play second fiddle (third-person singular simple present plays second fiddle, present participle playing second fiddle, simple past and past participle played second fiddle)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To play a subsidiary or subordinate role to someone or something else.
    • She had been mistress of the farm so long that it would be hard for her to play second fiddle, but give her time and she'd be as good as new butter and as nice as ninepence, he said.1913, Ethel Carnie, Miss Nobody, page 68

Questions about played second fiddle

What is played second fiddle the simple past and past participle of?
Played second fiddle is the simple past and past participle of play second fiddle.

Words near played second fiddle in the dictionary

  1. played out
  2. played pendulum
  3. played politics
  4. played possum
  5. played pussy
  6. played second fiddle
  7. played silly buggers
  8. played small
  9. played someone at their own game
  10. played someone like a bass fiddle
  11. played someone like a fiddle

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: played second fiddle (page history and authors); play second fiddle (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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