[f. FIDGE v., perh. in imitation of rickets.]
1. A condition of vague physical uneasiness, seeking relief in irregular bodily movements. App. first used in the fidget(s (now always pl.) as if the name of a malady or pathological symptom (sometimes in definite pathological sense: see quot. 1876). Hence transf. a condition or mood of impatient uneasiness or restlessness.
1674. N. Fairfax, A Treatise of the Bulk and Selvedge of the World, 134. ’Tis a kind of thing that has got the fidget.
1750. Gray, A Long Story, xxxiv.
| ‘Jesu-Maria! Madam Bridget, | |
| Why what can the Viscountess mean?’ | |
| (Cried the square Hoods in woeful fidget) | |
| ‘The times are alter’d quite and clean!’ |
1753. The World, No. 7, 15 Feb., 39. Fits of the fidgets, and complaints of immoderate heat, are the only symptoms of ill-fortune.
1778. Mad. D’Arblay, Diary, Aug. I was really in the fidgets from thinking what my reception might be.
1781. Cowper, Conversation, 208.
| But sedentary weavers of long tales | |
| Give me the fidgets, and my patience fails. |
1800. Mrs. Hervey, The Mourtray Family, I. 45. Their arrival, owing to the fidget and hurry of Mrs. Mourtray, was somewhat premature.
1837. Howitt, Rur. Life, VI. viii. (1862), 484. The landlady and her daughter are on the fidgets to receive us.
1839. E. FitzGerald, Lett. (1889), I. 51. I have got the fidgets in my right arm and hand (how the inconvenience redoubles as one mentions it)—do you know what the fidgets are?—a true ailment, though perhaps not a dangerous one.
1864. J. H. Newman, Apol. (1865), 41. He still not unnaturally felt, for reasons of his own, some fidget and nervousness at the course which his Oriel friends were taking.
1876. Bartholow, Mat. Med. (1879), 403. Wakefulness from mental worry, fatigue, unrest of the peripheral nerves (fidgets), and similar causes, will generally be relieved by the bromides.
1893. Dunglison, Dict. Med. (ed. 21), Fidgets.
2. [From the vb.] One who fidgets or worries unnecessarily, or who causes the fidgets in others.
1837. J. F. Cooper, Recoll. Europe, I. 208. He was soon flying about the room, at large, and betrayed himself immediately to be a fidget.
1881. Lady Herbert, Edith, vi. 159. Lord St. Aubyn is a very good man; only he is a terrible fidget.
1882. Lees & Clutterbuck, Three in Norway, ii. 10. Entirely dispensing with that creaking-booted fidget, the waiter.
3. [From the vb.] The action or habit of fidgeting, bustling about or worrying; also the rustling of a dress, etc.
1860–1. Flo. Nightingale, Nursing, 36. The fidget of silk and of crinoline, the crackling of starched petticoats, the rattling of keys, the creaking of stays and of shoes, will do a patient more harm than all the medicines in the world will do him good.
1890. Spectator, 15 Nov. The policy of legislative fidget carried to the most mischievous excess.
