fiddler
(ˈfɪd(ə)lə(r))
[OE. fiðelere, f. *fiðelian to fiddle, f. *fiðele fiddle n. Cf. ON. fiðlari.]
One who fiddles.
1. a. One who plays on the fiddle; esp. one who does so for hire. fiddler's fare, fiddler's money, fiddler's pay, fiddler's wages: see quots. 1597, 1608, a 1700, 1785.
| a 1100 Ags. Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 311 Fidicen, fiðelere. c 1330 Arth. & Merl. 6568 Ther were trumpes and fithelers. 1463 Mann. & Househ. Exp. 230 Govyn to a fedelere, the sayd day at nyte, iiij. d. 1532 More Confut. Barnes viii. Wks. 735/1 He..fareth as he wer from a frere waxen a fideler. 1597 1st Pt. Return fr. Parnass. i. i. 380 He..gave me fidler's wages, and dismiste mee. 1608 Markham Dumb Knight iii, Let the world know you haue had more than fidlers fare, for you haue meat, money, and cloth. 1644 Milton Areop. (Arb.) 50 The gammuth of every municipal fidler. a 1700 B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Fidlers-pay, Thanks and Wine. 1721 Bolingbroke in Swift's Lett. (1766) II. 20 As fiddlers flourish carelessly, before they play a fine air. 1785 Grose Dict. Vulg. Tongue, Fidler's money, all six⁓pences. 1807–8 W. Irving Salmag. (1824) 350 The fiddler puts the whole assembly in motion. 1886 Hall Caine Son of Hagar ii. xvi, The fiddler's function was at an end for the present. |
b. Fiddler's Green (Naut.): ‘a sailor's elysium, in which wine, women, and song figure prominently’ (Farmer).
| 1825 Sporting Mag. XVI. 404 My grannan..used to tell me that animals, when they departed this life, were destined to be fixed in Fidler's Green. 1836 W. H. Maxwell Capt. Blake I. xv. note, It is..believed that tailors and musicians after death are cantoned in a place called ‘Fiddler's Green’. 1837 Marryat Dog-fiend ix, We shape a course for Fiddler's Green. 1883 J. D. J. Kelly in Harper's Mag. Aug. 441/2 The pilotless narrows which lead to Fiddler's Green, where all good sailors go. |
2. † a. A trifler. Obs.
| 1591 R. Cecil in Unton's Corr. (Roxb.) 197 This discorse growes by many fidlers in your cause. 1735 Dyche & Pardon Dict., Fidler..a trifling, foolish, or impertinent Person. |
b. slang. A swindler, cheat; one who ‘wangles’.
| 1857 ‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue 8 Fiddler, a sharper, or cheat. Thieves. 1932 ‘Jock’ Dartmoor fr. Within v. 107 B―..was..what is termed in prison ‘a clever fiddler’. 1958 Times Lit. Suppl. 15 Aug. p. iv/1 He is a ‘spiv’ or a ‘fiddler’,..for he has offended against the principles of ‘fairness’ which is..the virtue nearest to the Englishman's heart. 1962 D. Warner Death of Bogey i. ii. 10 Spivs and pimps, fiddlers and tweedlers. |
c. A meddlesome or interfering person.
| 1952 A. Grimble Pattern of Islands vii. 143 Interfering with the customs of simple peoples..can end by leaving them bereft of their national will to live. The fiddler is a killer on a grand scale. |
3. slang. A sixpence.
| 1846 Swell's Night Guide 119/1 Fiddler, a sixpence. 1848 Sinks of London laid Open 106 Fiddler, a sixpence. 1885 Househ. Words 20 June 155/2 A more easily explained name [for a sixpence] is a Fiddler..probably from the old custom of each couple at a dance paying the fiddler sixpence. |
4. a. See quots. 1750 and 1887. b. A local name for the Sandpiper (Tringoides hypoleucus).
| 1750 G. Hughes Barbadoes 82 Fiddlers. This fly..much resembles a cockroach. 1885 Swainson Prov. Names Brit. Birds 196 Fiddler (Hebrides). 1887 Kent Gloss., Fiddler, the angel or shark-ray. |
c. A small crab of the genus Gelasimus. Also fiddler-crab.
| 1714 J. Lawson Carolina 162, Fidlars are a sort of small Crabs, that lie in Holes in the Marshes. 1867 W. B. Lord Crab, Shrimp, & Lobster Lore 29 A ‘Fidler-Crab’ (as it is sometimes called from the rapidity with which it works its elbows). 1883 S. L. Clemens [‘Mark Twain’] Life on Mississippi xlviii. 429 The drainage-ditches were everywhere alive with little crabs—‘fiddlers’. |
5. attrib. and Comb., as fiddler lad; fiddler-like adj. and adv.; fiddler beetle, an Australian beetle, Eupœcila australasiæ, belonging to the family Scarabæidæ.
| 1824 Scott Redgauntlet Let. xii, ‘Deil's in the fiddler lad’ was muttered from more quarters than one. 1628 Venner Baths of Bathe (1650) 359 It is Fidler-like. 1660 Howell Parly of Beasts 128 He was dismissed Fidler-like, with meat, drink, and money. [1907 W. W. Froggatt Austral. Insects 161 The Fiddler, Eupoecila australasiae,..is black and reddish brown, marked upon the thorax and elytra with green stripes.] 1917 Austral. Naturalist Apr. 184 At Tuggerah Lakes in September, 1916, a cluster of cocoons of the Fiddler beetle were found at the base of a hollow stump of a Eucalyptus. 1926 R. J. Tillyard Insects Austral. & N.Z. xx. 231 The Fiddler Beetle, Eupoecila australasiae Don..is common in Eastern Australia in November. 1945 K. C. McKeown Austral. Insects 145 One of the commonest species is Eupoecila australasiae Don., the Fiddler Beetle; it is black with bright green hieroglyphics on the elytra. |