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Fiddle vs Meddle - What's the difference?

fiddle | meddle |

As verbs the difference between fiddle and meddle

is that fiddle is to play aimlessly while meddle is (obsolete) to mix (something) with some other substance; to commingle, combine, blend.

As a noun fiddle

is (music) any of various bowed string instruments, often used to refer to a violin when played in any of various traditional styles, as opposed to classical violin.

fiddle

English

(wikipedia fiddle)

Noun

(en noun)
  • (music) Any of various bowed string instruments, often used to refer to a violin when played in any of various traditional styles, as opposed to classical violin.
  • When I play it like this, it's a fiddle; when I play it like that, it's a violin.
  • A kind of dock (Rumex pulcher ) with leaves shaped like the musical instrument.
  • An adjustment intended to cover up a basic flaw.
  • That parameter setting is just a fiddle to make the lighting look right.
  • A fraud; a scam.
  • (nautical) On board a ship or boat, a rail or batten around the edge of a table or stove to prevent objects falling off at sea. (Also fiddle rail )
  • Synonyms

    * (instrument) violin

    Derived terms

    * fiddle brake * fiddle factor * fiddle-faddle * fiddlehead * fiddly * first fiddle * fit as a fiddle * lead fiddle * second fiddle

    See also

    * crowd, crwth

    Verb

    (fiddl)
  • To play aimlessly.
  • * Samuel Pepys
  • Talking, and fiddling with their hats and feathers.
    You're fiddling your life away.
  • To adjust in order to cover a basic flaw or fraud etc.
  • I needed to fiddle the lighting parameters to get the image to look right.
    Fred was sacked when the auditors caught him fiddling the books.
  • (music) To play traditional tunes on a violin in a non-classical style.
  • * Francis Bacon
  • Themistocles said he could not fiddle , but he could make a small town a great city.

    Synonyms

    * (to adjust in order to cover a basic flaw) fudge

    Derived terms

    * fiddle about * fiddle around * fiddle the books * fiddle with * fiddler

    See also

    * fritter

    meddle

    English

    Verb

    (meddl)
  • (obsolete) To mix (something) with some other substance; to commingle, combine, blend.
  • *1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , II.i:
  • *:he cut a locke of all their heare, / Which medling with their bloud and earth, he threw / Into the graue.
  • *:
  • *:But after god came to Adam and bad hym knowe his wyf flesshly as nature requyred / Soo lay Adam with his wyf vnder the same tree / and anone the tree whiche was whyte and ful grene as ony grasse and alle that came oute of hit / and in the same tyme that they medled to gyders there was Abel begoten / thus was the tree longe of grene colour
  • *, II.5.1.v:
  • *:Take a ram's head that never meddled with an ewe, cut off at a blow, and the horns only taken away, boil it well, skin and wool together.
  • (senseid)To interfere (in) or (with); to concern oneself with unduly.
  • *Bible, 2 Kings xiv.10:
  • *:Why shouldst thou meddle to thy hurt?
  • *John Locke
  • *:The civil lawyershave meddled in a matter that belongs not to them.
  • (obsolete) To interest or engage oneself; to have to do (with), in a good sense.
  • *Tyndale
  • *:Study to be quiet, and to meddle with your own business.
  • :(Barrow)
  • Derived terms

    * meddlement * meddlesome * meddler

    Anagrams

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