fiddler

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English fitheler, also fideler,^[2][3] inherited from Old English fiðelere (“fiddler”).^{[4][5][2][6][7]} The Old English word is formed from fiðele (“fiddle”) and the agent suffix -ere,^[2][8][7][9] or, according to the OED, from an unrecorded verb *fiðelian (“to fiddle”) with the same suffix;^[5] Etymonline also calls it an agent noun from the verb fiddle.^[4] Old English also had a feminine fiðelestre.^[4][6] It corresponds to Old Norse fiðlari,^[5][9] and similar formations are Dutch vedelaar, German Fiedler and Danish fidler.^[4][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who plays the fiddle: Old English, glossing Latin fidicen in Ælfric's Grammar and in a vocabulary.^[6][5] Etymonline dates the Middle English word to the late 13th century,^[4] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives the 12th century as its first known use.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The Old English and Middle English word named a player of the fiddle, often one who played for hire,^[5][6] and the Middle English form appears in Piers Plowman.^[3] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as a musician who plays the fiddle.^[11] It later came to mean a trifler, from 1591,^[5][9] a ne'er-do-well in Smollett in 1771,^[12] and a cheat or swindler in 19th-century slang.^[5][12][13] In the 20th century it was also used for a meddlesome person (1952).^[5] Slang made it a coin: a sixpence from 1846,^[5] and a farthing from 1860, which Green's Dictionary of Slang tentatively links with the old custom of each couple at a dance paying the fiddler.^[12] From 1714 it named a small crab, the fiddler crab,^[5][4] which Etymonline says is also called the calling crab because it brandishes its large claw as if beckoning.^[4] Fiddler's Green, a sailors' paradise, is recorded from 1825.^[5][4][14] In dialect, fiddler's money was small change,^[14] and in Hampshire a fiddler was a pond-skater.^[14]

Timeline

• Old English – a person who plays the fiddle, especially for hire.^[5][6]
• 1591 – a trifler (obsolete in this sense by 1735).^[5]
• 1714 – a small crab, the fiddler crab.^[5][4]
• 1750 – the name of certain fishes and insects in Barbados.^[5][15]
• 1771 – a ne'er-do-well.^[12]
• 1825 – Fiddler's Green, a sailors' paradise.^[5][4]
• 1846 – slang, a sixpence.^[5]
• 1857 – slang, a swindler or cheat.^[5]
• 1860 – slang, a farthing.^[12]
• 1885 – a local name for the common sandpiper.^[5]
• 1952 – a meddlesome or interfering person.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who plays the fiddle, especially in folk music: The fiddler played reels until midnight.^[13][2][5]
2. A fiddler crab.^[13][2][5]
3. A person who fiddles; one who fidgets or wastes time aimlessly.^[13][2][9]
4. (informal) A cheat or petty swindler.^[13][5][12]
5. Any of several rays of the family Rhinobatidae, shaped somewhat like a violin; also called a fiddlefish.^[2]
6. Fiddler's Green: in sailors' lore, a paradise of wine, women and song.^[5][4][14]

Word family

• fiddler crab

Related words

• fiddle

Usage notes

The Shorter Oxford records the phrase drunk as a fiddler.^[9]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b Mayhew, A. L.; Skeat, Walter W. (1888), A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
7. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c d e f Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
13. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b c d Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
15. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)