Word.ws English Dictionary

plays second fiddle

plays second fiddle is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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 plays second fiddle

What is plays second fiddle the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Plays second fiddle is the third-person singular simple present indicative of play second fiddle.

Words near plays second fiddle in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: plays 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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