Also 6 twydle, 9 tweedle. [App. onomatopœic, intended to combine the idea of twirl or twist with that of trifling action, as in fiddle, piddle. Both verb and sb. (see prec.) are very rare before the 19th c.]
1. intr. To be busy about trifles; to trifle; also to twiddle with or at = sense 2.
c. 1540. J. Redford, Mor. Play Wit & Sc. (Shaks. Soc.), 18. As for her syngyng, pypyng, and fydlyng, What unthryftynes therin is twydlyng?
a. 1825. Forby, Voc. E. Anglia, Twiddle,… to be busy and bestow seeming pains about the merest trifles…. ‘What are you twiddling about there?’
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, xxxii. Even in the midst of his terror he began mechanically to twiddle with his hair.
1865. Le Fanu, Guy Dev., ii. The Baronet twiddled at his whisker … in the glass.
1874. Carpenter, Ment. Phys., I. viii. (1879), 373. The hands … may often be seen unconsciously stealing upwards to ‘twiddle’ with their watch-keys.
2. trans. To cause to rotate lightly or delicately; to turn (anything) about, esp. with the fingers; to twirl; to play with idly or absently; also, to adjust or bring into some place or condition by twirling or handling lightly.
1676. Wiseman, Chirurg. Treat., III. ii. 220. With my fingers upon the Stupe I pressed close upon it, and twiddled it in first one side, then the other.
1814. L. Hunt, Feast of Poets, 6. He fell twiddling a sunbeam as I may my pen.
1824. Beddoes, Lett., Feb., in Poems (1851), p. xxx. The sign of a fellow tweedling a mask in his fingers.
1840. Mrs. F. Trollope, Widow Married, xiv. The quilling of her tulle … twiddling it into becoming shape.
1851. D. Jerrold, St. Giles, xvii. 182. He twiddled the reins between his fingers.
1860. Thackeray, Round. Papers, Tunbridge Toys, 62. I … amused myself with twiddling round the moveable calendar.
1886. G. Allen, Maimie’s Sake, xii. With one hand twiddling his watch-chain nervously.
b. fig. To twist, twirl, in various senses. Also Sc., to diddle or do (one) out of something.
1825. Jamieson, s.v., ‘He tried to twiddle me out of my money.’
1885. Times, 12 Dec., 5. After being twiddled between the thumbs of two Conferences.
1891. Sheffield Gloss., Supp. s.v. Tweedle, ‘I can tweedle him round my thumb.’
1898. Daily News, 11 Nov., 3/4. They can twiddle the facts about so that you don’t know where you are.
1901. ‘R. Connor,’ Man fr. Glengarry, xi. Bella just twiddled her father round her finger.
c. To twiddle one’s thumbs, or fingers, to keep turning them idly around each other; fig. to have nothing to do, to be idle.
1835. North Wales Chron., 27 Oct., 4/4. They will be left to kick up their heels, twiddle their thumbs, and dine with Duke Humphry.
1846. D. Jerrold, Mrs. Caudle, xxii. You’d have all the world do nothing half its time but twiddle its thumbs.
1849. Cupples, Green Hand, ii. The … cotton-grower twiddled his thumbs and looked modestly down on the deck.
1883. Stevenson, Lett. (1901), I. vi. 284. I have to twiddle my fingers and play patience.
1904. Times, 15 June, 4/1. We didn’t twiddle our thumbs much that week.
3. intr. To move in a twirling manner; to turn about in a light or trifling way.
1812. W. Tennant, Anster F., IV. lv. Five hundred fingers … Play twiddling up and down on hole and bore.
1844. Thackeray, Contrib. to Punch, Wks. 1901, VI. 56. A few wretched little vessels are twiddling up and down. Ibid. (1848), Bk. Snobs, xxiv. She … made a majestic curtesy, during which all the bugles in her awful head-dress began to twiddle and quiver.
1876. Smiles, Sc. Natur., xiii. (ed. 4), 261. Away went the bird, twiddling and straddling.
1887. Suppl. to Jamieson, Tweedle, to work in a trifling, careless, or slovenly manner.
1907. Mrs. Fr. Campbell, Sheph. of Stars, 146. [The donkey’s] very ears twiddled with laughter.
Hence Twiddling ppl. a., that twiddles; twirling; also, trifling, paltry; also Twiddler, one who or that which twiddles; in quot. 1904, a twirling delivery of the ball at Cricket, a ‘twister’; Twiddly a., characterized by twiddling.
1844. Thackeray, Little Trav., i. A lady in a little twiddling Parisian hat and feather.
1848. Mustachio-twiddler [see MUSTACHIO 3].
1851. J. Colquhoun, Moor & Loch (1880), I. 70. There is … the uncertainty whether the next point may be the red, or the ‘jetty, heath-cock,’ or whether a twiddling snipe may spring.
1862. H. Marryat, Year in Sweden, I. 81. The wishiwashy lady with little twiddling curls round her face.
1862. G. Meredith, Modern Love, xxxiv. Time leers between, above his twiddling thumbs.
1904. Daily Chron., 29 June, 4/1. Reputable batsmen going out to Jephson’s twiddlers.
1906. Westm. Gaz., 19 April, 4/2. In your cradle safely nestling,… All your twiddly fingers wrestling With the toe-toes on your feet.
