tweedles

Verb

tweedle (third-person singular simple present tweedles, present participle tweedling, simple past and past participle tweedled)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To handle lightly; said with reference to awkward playing on a fiddle.
   • “Neaw, owd lad,” said he, as he screwed, first one peg, then another, and tweedled over little fits of wailing prelude, to get the tones he wanted.1881, Edwin Waugh, Tufts of Heather - Volume 1, page 21
2. (broadly, obsolete, transitive) To influence as if by fiddling; to coax; to allure.
   • A fiddler brought in with him a body of lusty young fellows, whom he had tweedled into the service.1717 January 9 (Gregorian calendar), Joseph Addison, “The Free-holder: No. 3. Saturday, December 30. [1716.]”, in The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq; […], volume IV, London: […]...

   Synonyms:

   beguile, cajole, wheedle, allure, arrest, attract, becharm, bewitch, beckon, captivate

3. To twiddle.
   • As it was, he tweedled the letter about in his hands for about five minutes, in a musing mood, and then stepped with it into Mr. Gammon's room.1842, Samuel Warren, Ten Thousand A-year - Volume 1, page 59

   Synonyms:

   fidget, twitch, wiggle

4. (UK, slang) To sell fake jewellery as genuine.
   • I am afraid that the knowing author of the “cracking a-crib” book would be flummoxed by tweedling.1925, Eustace Jervis, Twenty-five Years in Six Prisons, page 17
5. To make a shrill or trilling sound
   • Yesterday I dined at the Percivals, and tweedled away upon a lovely harpsichord, and I was not bid to “mind my time.”1861, Mary Granville Delany, The Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville, page 182

   Synonyms:

   chirp, screech, warble

6. To say in a high-pitched voice.
   • Hurt that the Churts and I were exchanging fatuities over yet another second-rate painting instead of tweedling appreciatively over the extraordinary and beautiful child she was rocking on the other side of the room?2009, Michael Frayn, Headlong

See all 11 meanings of tweedle