[This and the vb. are reduplications of FIDDLE or FADDLE; cf. Ger. fickfack, and contemptuous formations like flim-flam, skimble-skamble, etc.]
A. sb.
1. Trifling talk or action; in pl. trivial matters, trifling occupations or objects of attention.
1577. trans. Bullinger’s Decades (1587), 103/2. This more than needing fiddle faddle smacks somwhat of ambition.
1592. G. Harvey, Pierce’s Super., Wks. 1884, II. 97–8. Who of reckoning, can spare anye lewde, or vaine tyme for corrupt pamphlets; or who of iudgment, will not cry? away with these paultringe fidle-fadles.
1684. trans. Agrippa’s Van. Arts, xxx. 86. The works neither of God nor Nature, but the Fiddle-faddles and Trifles of Mathematicians, taking their beginnings from corrupt Philosophy and the fables of the Poets.
a. 1734. North, Exam., II. v. § 141 (1740), 403. Come leave your Fiddlefaddles of Presumptions.
c. 1760. in Macaulay, Ess. Pitt (1854), 308/2.
| No more they make a fiddle-faddle | |
| About a Hessian horse or saddle. |
1827. Scott, Jrnl., 8 July. The fiddle-faddle of arranging all the things was troublesome, but they give a good account of my affairs.
1849. Darwin, Life & Lett. (1887), I. 377. Describing species of birds and shells, &c., is all fiddle-faddle.
1861. T. L. Peacock, Gryll Gr., 103. Where you just look on fiddlefaddles while your dinner is behind a screen.
1887. Jessopp, Arcady, iv. 134. Guinea subscriptions and collecting cards, annual meetings of members with a noble chairman ‘urging the claims of our society,’ touting and trumpeting, and all the petty fiddle-faddle that is growing so stale.
2. An idler, trifler; a gossip, chatterbox.
1602. Breton, Merry Wonders. Maid Marian in a Morrice-daunce, would put her down for a Fiddle-faddle.
1756. Mrs. Delany, Lett. to Mrs. Dewes, 27 March. She had Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Gosling, and two or three fiddle faddles, so that I might as well have been at the oratorio.
1824. Westm. Rev., II. Oct., 337. Your true fiddle-faddle Somebody, who would be in high repute among his fellows, will occasionally mis-quote a line of Horace, will perfectly idolize Shakespear, and hold in soverign contempt the wretch who cannot discuss all his characters, from Macbeth down to Caliban.
1888. Berksh. Gloss., s.v., A ‘viddle vaddle or viddle vaddler.’
B. adj. Trifling, petty, fussy: said of persons as well as of things.
1617. Collins, Def. Bp. Ely, 298. A great deale more of such fiddle-faddle-stuffe which S. Paul condemnes in one word.
1727. De Foe, Protest. Monast., 16. A Man may behave himself most punctually Ceremonious at a Ball, a drawing Room, a Tea-Table, or indeed in any other fiddle faddle part of Life; and yet for all this be but a Man of Clouts.
1712. Arbuthnot, John Bull, in Arb., Garner (1883), VI. 603. They [liverymen] said, ‘She was a troublesome fiddle faddle old woman!’
1834. Beckford, Italy, II. 164. He being so like an old lady of the bed-chamber, so fiddle-faddle and so coquettish.
1855. Thackeray, Newcomes, II. 69. The fiddle-faddle etiquette of the Court.
C. int. Nonsense! Bosh!
1671. Shadwell, Humorists, v. Fiddle faddle on your Travelling and University.
1705. Vanbrugh, Confed., II. i. Fiddle, faddle; han’t I wit enough already?
1779. Mad. D’Arblay, Diary, 11 Jan. Dr. Johnson: Pho! fiddle-faddle; do you suppose your book is so much talked of and not yourself?
1876. F. E. Trollope, A Charming Fellow, III. xv. 191. Oh, fiddle-faddle, my lord!
