Fid"dle (?), n. [OE. fidele, fithele, AS. fiele; akin to D. vedel, OHG. fidula, G. fiedel, Icel. fila, and perh. to E. viol. Cf. Viol.]

1. Mus.

A stringed instrument of music played with a bow; a violin; a kit.

2. Bot.

A kind of dock (Rumex pulcher) with fiddle-shaped leaves; -- called also fiddle dock.

3. Naut.

A rack or frame of bars connected by strings, to keep table furniture in place on the cabin table in bad weather.

Ham. Nav. Encyc.

Fiddle beetle Zool., a Japanese carabid beetle (Damaster blaptoides); -- so called from the form of the body. -- Fiddle block Naut., a long tackle block having two sheaves of different diameters in the same plane, instead of side by side as in a common double block. Knight. -- Fiddle bow, fiddlestick. -- Fiddle fish Zool., the angel fish. -- Fiddle head, an ornament on a ship's bow, curved like the volute or scroll at the head of a violin. -- Fiddle pattern, a form of the handles of spoons, forks, etc., somewhat like a violin. -- Scotch fiddle, the itch. (Low) -- To play first, ∨ second, fiddle, to take a leading or a subordinate part. [Colloq.]

 

© Webster 1913.


Fid"dle, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Fiddled (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Fiddling (?).]

1.

To play on a fiddle.

Themistocles . . . said he could not fiddle, but he could make a small town a great city. Bacon.

2.

To keep the hands and fingers actively moving as a fiddler does; to move the hands and fingers restlessy or in busy idleness; to trifle.

Talking, and fiddling with their hats and feathers. Pepys.

 

© Webster 1913.


Fid"dle (?), v. t.

To play (a tune) on a fiddle.

 

© Webster 1913.

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