subs. (streets’).—1. A livelihood got on the streets, holding horses, carrying parcels, etc.
1851–61. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, vol. I., p. 211. A lad that had been lucky FIDDLING (holding horses, or picking up money anyhow).
2. See quot. and cf., quot., subs., sense 1.
1850. Lloyd’s Weekly, 3 Feb. ‘Low Lodging Houses of London.’ I live on 2s. a week from thieving, because I understand FIDDLING—that means, buying a thing for a mere trifle, and selling it for double, or for more, if you’re not taken in yourself.
3. (colloquial).—Idling; trifling.
4. (gamesters’).—Gambling.
Adj. (colloquial).—Trifling; trivial; fussing with nothing.
b. 1667, d. 1745. SWIFT [quoted in ‘Annandale’]. Good cooks cannot abide what they call FIDDLING work.
1802. C. K. SHARPE, in Correspondence (1888), i., 152. He is a mighty neat, pretty little, FIDDLING fellow, and exceedingly finely bred.
1880. HAWLEY SMART, Social Sinners, ch. xiii. I will look in at that time, and trust to find you have settled all these FIDDLING preliminaries.
