1. The case in which a fiddle is kept. Also attrib., fiddle-case boots: boots as big as a fiddle-case.
1647. Ward, The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America, 27. It is a most unworthy thing, for men that have bones in them, to spend their lives in making fidle-cases for futulous womens phansies.
1762. Goldsm., Cit. W., xli. A parcel of musical blockheads, whose passion was merely for sounds, and whose heads were as empty as a fiddle-case.
1837. Lockhart, Scott (1839) VUL 71. There soon entered into the room about half a dozen tall footmen, each bearing a fiddle-case; and Scott now found his musical knowledge brought to no less trying a test than that of telling, by the tone of each fiddle, as the Duke played it, by what artist it had been made.
1852. R. S. Surtees, Sponge’s Sp. Tour, lxvi. 536. Two Cheeks with their tweed trousers thrust into fiddle-case boots.
2. pl. (See quot.).
1878–86. Britten & Holland, Plant-n, Fiddle-cases, Rhinanthus crista-galli.
