Fiddle

How to spell fiddle

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce fiddle

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fiddle mean?

1. verbTo touch, adjust, or play with something restlessly, often without a clear purpose.
2. nounA violin, especially one used for folk or traditional music.
3. nounAn act of cheating or a dishonest scheme, especially involving money.

Fiddle in a sentence

• verb

  Children often fiddle with the dials on the radio when left alone.

• noun

  She tuned her fiddle before the barn dance began.

• noun

  The auditors uncovered a fiddle involving fake expense claims.

• verb

  He tends to fiddle with his pen during long meetings.

• noun

  The band needed a fiddle to carry the reels and jigs.

• noun

  His tax fiddle eventually landed him in court.

Where does fiddle come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Fiddle comes from the Old English fithele, the everyday name for a bowed stringed instrument long before the grander word 'violin' arrived from Italy. The Old English form belongs to a wider family of Germanic words, including the Old High German fidula, and most scholars link these back to the Medieval Latin vitula or vidula, a name for a stringed instrument. That Latin word may in turn connect to the Roman goddess Vitula, associated with joy and celebration, and to the verb meaning 'to rejoice', which fits an instrument played at feasts and dances. By the later Middle Ages 'fiddle' was the common English word for the instrument, while 'violin' became the formal, classical term. The verb sense of restlessly handling or tinkering with something grew up alongside it, and the British slang sense of cheating or swindling is a more recent figurative extension. The double 'dd' and the final silent 'e' are the only real spelling points to watch.

How the word is built

• fiddle (whole word; from Old English fithele, a stringed instrument); no separable prefix or suffix