Fiddling

adj, noun, verb

adj, noun, verb ·2 syllables ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The playing of music on a fiddle. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    The act of fidgeting. countable, uncountable
  3. 3
    Tweaking; manipulation. countable, uncountable

    "[W]e, her doctors […] seemed powerless to prevent [side-effects], despite all our reassurances, and all our fiddlings and manipulations with the dosage[…]"

Verb
  1. 1
    present participle and gerund of fiddle form-of, gerund, participle, present

    "He was fiddling while Rome burned."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of petty or trivial importance; footling

    "It was a fiddling little fault, but ultimately proved disastrous."

Adjective
  1. 1
    (informal) small and of little importance wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
coquetrydalliancedallyingfiddleryflirtationfooling

Example

More examples

"Tom is fiddling with his bow tie."

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.