faddle

present singular third person faddles · participle present faddling · participle past faddled · past faddled

1. To fiddle (play aimlessly).

   I am afraid I must be at bottom, what a cheerful Indian critic has dubbed me, "a faddling hedonist" […]

   1879, Robert Louis Stevenson, quoting an anonymous reviewer in the Allahabad Pioneer, June 27, 1878, “Our Lady of the Snows – The Boarders”, in Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, page 99

   2 more examples

   He faddles over the needless, such as hanging maps up on the walls in the section and putting inkpots on the mantelpiece.

   1906, The Building News and Engineering Journal, volume 91, page 896

   I had that awful woman, Celia Thaxter, sitting next to me, boring me to death with what a marvellous writer Mark Twain was […] I said, "look, dear, he's sitting just over there. Why don't you go and talk to him?" She faddled around, blushing like a schoolgirl and saying she couldn't possibly.

   2017, M.J. Trow, chapter 11, in The Island

   Synonyms: fiddle

2. UKdatedTo dote on.

   She was doing no good in church all put about and faddling after Blackie.

   1974, Sydney John Watson, The Cottage Countess: An Historical Romance, page 44

   2 more examples

   Even then, when nurse is ready to take baby out for a walk, properly wrapped up, faddling Mamma comes to examine, if not a little corner remains to be closed to the air.

   1893, Sebastian Kneipp, My Water-cure Tested for Than 35 Years and Published for the Cure of Diseases and the Preservation of Health, page 26

   “The last year she spent faddling at Aunt Mai's […] I am not sure this is necessary to her happiness, this faddling after other people. Now, to faddle after folk, who don't want you, is madness . . . but to faddle after those that do is very good employment. Now […] you are the very person for her, for she dotes on you […]”

   1950, Cecil Woodham-Smith, quoting Mary Elizabeth Mohl, Florence Nightingale 1820-1910, page 435