▪ I. diddle, v.1 colloq. or dial.
(ˈdɪd(ə)l)
[app. a parallel form to didder, the formative suffixes -le and -er being somewhat akin in their force, though the former is more strictly diminutival. Cf. daddle, daidle; there are evident analogies both of form and sense between didder, dadder, diddle, daddle.]
† 1. intr. To walk unsteadily, as a child; to toddle; = daddle. Obs.
| 1632 Quarles Div. Fancies i. iv. (1660) 3 And when his forward strength began to bloom, To see him diddle up and down the Room! |
2. intr. To move from side to side by jerks; to shake, quiver.
| 1786 Burns Ep. to Major Logan iii, Hale be your heart, hale be your fiddle; Lang may your elbuck jink and diddle. a 1810 Tannahill Poems (1846) 60 You..wi' your clairon, flute, an' fiddle, Will gar their southern heart-strings diddle. 1835 D. Webster in Harp Renfrewsh. Ser. ii. (1873) 154 Wi fiddling and diddling and dancing The house was in perfect uproar. |
3. trans. To jerk from side to side.
| 1893 Stevenson Catriona 173 A fiddler diddling his elbock at the chimney side. |
4. a. intr. and trans. To copulate or have sexual intercourse (with), esp. with woman as obj. b. intr. and refl. To masturbate (now chiefly U.S.). slang.
| 1879 in G. Legman Limerick (1979) 131 There was a young man from Toulouse Who thought he would diddle a goose. 1889 Barrère & Leland Dict. Slang I. 308/2 Diddle, to (vulgar), to have sexual commerce. 1940 W. Faulkner Hamlet ii. ii. 134 ‘I'll find all three of them. I'll—’ ‘What for? Just out of curiosity to find out for certain just which of them was and wasn't diddling her?’ 1960 Wentworth & Flexner Dict. Amer. Slang 146/2 There was a man from Racine Who invented a diddling machine; Both concave and convex, It could fit either sex. 1966 [see Polack a.]. 1974 K. Millett Flying (1975) iii. 348 Paraphernalia with the scarf... Supposed to diddle herself with it. Male fantasy of lonely chick masturbating in sad need of him. 1983 M. Gee Sole Survivor vi. 60 ‘I used to get erections on parade in the school cadets.’ ‘What did you do?’ He shrugged. ‘Do you diddle yourself?’ That was hard for me to admit. He waited until I said yes. |
▪ II. ˈdiddle, v.2
[app. onomatopœic, representing the effect of singing, without uttering connected words. Dialectally deedle and doodle are used in a similar sense.]
trans. To sing without distinct utterance of words.
| 1706 E. Ward Hud. Rediv. I. vi. 3 So all sung diff'rent Tunes and Graces, Such as they us'd to lull and diddle To froward Infants in the Cradle. |
▪ III. diddle, v.3 colloq.
(ˈdɪd(ə)l)
[A recent word, of obscure origin.
It is possible that sense 1 was transferred from diddle v.1, and was the source of the name diddler, and that sense 2 was back-formation from that word. Sense 2 might however, as far as form and meaning go, be related to OE. didrian, dydrian to deceive, delude (cf. what is said of the suffixes -er, and -le, under diddle v.1); but there is an interval of eight or nine centuries between the known occurrences of the words. It is worthy of note also that doodle occurs in the sense ‘to befool’, and that doodle n. ‘simpleton, noodle’ goes back to c 1600.]
1. ‘To waste time in the merest trifling’ (Forby a 1825). Hence to diddle away: to trifle away (time), to waste in a trifling manner.
| 1826 Scott Jrnl. (1890) I. 250 A day diddled away, and nothing to show for it! 1829 Ibid. 17 Feb., I was at the Court, where there was little to do, but it diddled away my time till two. |
2. trans. a. To cheat or swindle; to victimize; to ‘do’. b. To do for, undo, ruin; to kill.
| 1806 T. S. Surr Winter in Lond. II. 127 That flashy captain..may lay all London under contribution..but he can't diddle me. 1809 European Mag. LX. 19 We shall soon find ourselves completely diddled and undone. 1810 W. B. Rhodes Bomb. Fur. iv. (1822) 22 O Fusbos, Fusbos, I am diddled quite [He dies]. 1817 Lady Granville Letters (1894) I. 111 He..exclaimed, ‘Then you are diddled!’ Think of the effect of this slang upon incroyable ears! 1823 Byron Juan xi. xvii, Poor Tom was..Full flash, all fancy, until fairly diddled. 1829 Marryat F. Mildmay xvii, I suppose we diddled at least a hundred men. 1859 Sala Tw. round Clock (1861) 145 The labourer..invariably finds himself at the end of the week victimised, or, to use a more expressive, though not so genteel a term, diddled, to a heart-rending extent. 1879 Public Opinion 12 July 42 He may diddle his tradesmen. |
c. to diddle out of: to do out of, swindle out of.
| 1829 Scott Jrnl. 27 Mar., I am diddled out of a day all the same. 1833 Lamb Lett. (1888) II. 285 What a cheap book is the last Hogarth you sent me! I am pleased now that Hunt diddled me out of the old one. 1886 A. Griffiths Pauper Peer i, You were robbed, euchred, diddled out of fifty thousand pounds. |
Hence ˈdiddling vbl. n. and ppl. a.
| a 1849 Poe Diddling Wks. 1864 IV. 268 Diddling, rightly considered, is a compound, of which the ingredients are minuteness, interest, perseverance, ingenuity, audacity, nonchalance, originality, impertinence and grin. 1894 Westm. Gaz. 10 May 2/3 No Interference with the Diddling of the Public. |
▪ IV. ˈdiddle, n. slang and vulgar.
[Three different words: cf. prec. vbs.]
1. The sound of the fiddle; cf. next.
| 1806 J. Train Poet. Reveries (Jam.), In their ears it is a diddle Like the sounding of a fiddle. |
2. A swindle, a deception.
| 1885 Punch 5 Sept. 110 (Farmer) And something whispered me—in diction chaste—It's all a diddle! |
3. A slang name for gin, and in U.S. for liquor generally. Hence diddle-cove (slang), a keeper of a gin or spirit shop.
| c 1700 Street Robberies Consider'd, Diddle, Geneva. 1725 New Cant. Dict., Diddle, the Cant Word for Geneva. 1858 Mayhew Paved with Gold iii. i. 252 (Farmer) And there's a first-rate ‘diddle-cove’ keeps a gin-shop there. |