Fiddly
adj ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Requiring dexterity to operate.
"The buttons on the tiny mobile phone were too fiddly."
- 2 Having many small bits or embellishments. broadly
"See, Barbados, like certain other fiddly little islands— Antigua, Saint Lucia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Japan, Great Britain, Australia— is filled with a genus of hotspurs fiercely dedicated to motoring on the wrong side of the road."
- 3 Of or relating to fiddling or fidgeting.
"I can divide my movements into two types: gross motor and fine motor (in other words, large movements and small, fiddly movements) and, as I have already described, I have far more problems with the latter than the former."
- 4 Pertaining to occasional under-the-table work by people who receive unemployment benefits
"Because benefit dependence was understood to confine people to poverty ('bend the rules - you've got to in this world cause of the pittance you get off the government') and because doing fiddly work indicated a commitment to self-reliance ('at least they're working') it was widely condoned."
Example
More examples"It was a tad fiddly trying to apply nail polish with the bigger brush."
Etymology
From fiddle + -y, from the verb.
More for "fiddly"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.