slang or colloq. [f. prec.] a. intr. To tell taradiddles or fibs. b. trans. To impose upon, or bring into some condition, by telling fibs. Hence Taradiddler, one who taradiddles, a petty liar.
1828. Examiner, 658/1. His enemies … squibbed, and paragraphed, and taradiddled him to death.
1847–78. Halliwell, Tarra-diddled, imposed upon, generally by lies.
1873. Chambers’s Jrnl., L. 6 Sept., 569/1. Mrs Salusbury vouched for the fact, and we have no right to set her down as a tarradiddler.
1880. Society, 29 Oct. Perhaps there is not a more facile … tarradiddler than the London correspondent of the provincial newspaper.
1909. Athenæum, 6 March, 281/1. A barefaced tarradiddler or a prophet.
