Adjacent Words

Diddle definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

DIDDLE, v.i. To totter, as a child in walking.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

v
1: deprive of by deceit; "He swindled me out of my inheritance"; "She defrauded the customers who trusted her"; "the cashier gypped me when he gave me too little change" [syn: victimize, swindle, rook, goldbrick, nobble, diddle, bunco, defraud, scam, mulct, gyp, gip, hornswoggle, short-change, con]
2: manipulate manually or in one's mind or imagination; "She played nervously with her wedding ring"; "Don't fiddle with the screws"; "He played with the idea of running for the Senate" [syn: toy, fiddle, diddle, play]

Merriam Webster's

verb (diddled; diddling) Etymology: origin unknown Date: 1786 transitive verb 1. chiefly dialect to move with short rapid motions 2. to waste (as time) in trifling 3. hoax, swindle 4. often vulgar to copulate with intransitive verb 1. dawdle, fool 2. fiddle, toy — usually used with with <diddled with the machine until it broke> • diddler noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

v. colloq. 1 tr. cheat, swindle. 2 intr. US waste time. Derivatives: diddler n. Etymology: prob. back-form. f. Jeremy Diddler in Kenney's 'Raising the Wind' (1803)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Diddle Did"dle, v. i. [Cf. Daddle.] To totter, as a child in walking. [Obs.] --Quarles.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Diddle Did"dle, v. t. [Perh. from AS. dyderian to deceive, the letter r being changed to l.] To cheat or overreach. [Colloq.] --Beaconsfield.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(diddles, diddling, diddled) 1. If someone diddles you, they take money from you dishonestly or unfairly. (mainly BRIT INFORMAL) They diddled their insurance company by making a false claim. = con VERB: V n 2. If someone diddles, they waste time and do not achieve anything. (AM INFORMAL) ...if Congress were to just diddle around and not take any action at all. VERB: oft V adv, V around

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

v. n. 1. Totter. 2. Trifle, dawdle, waste time.

1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

To cheat. To defraud. The cull diddled me out of my dearee; the fellow robbed me of my sweetheart. See Jeremy Diddler In Raising The Wind.

1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

Gin.

Moby Thesaurus

ball, bamboozle, be intimate, beat, beguile, beguile of, beguile the time, betray, bilk, bluff, bunco, burn, burn daylight, cajole, cheat, cheat on, chisel, chouse, chouse out of, circumvent, cog, cog the dice, cohabit, come together, commit adultery, con, conjure, consume time, copulate, couple, cover, cozen, crib, dabble, dally, dawdle, deceive, defraud, delude, dillydally, do, do in, do out of, doodle, double-cross, drone, dupe, euchre, finagle, flam, fleece, flimflam, fob, footle, forestall, fornicate, fribble, frig, fritter away time, fudge, gammon, get around, gouge, gull, gyp, have, have sex, have sexual relations, hoax, hocus, hocus-pocus, hornswaggle, humbug, juggle, kill time, lag, lallygag, lay, laze, let down, lie with, linger, loaf, loiter, loll, lollygag, lose time, lounge, make it with, make love, make out, mate, mock, mount, mulct, outmaneuver, outreach, outsmart, outwit, overreach, pack the deal, pass the time, piddle, pigeon, play one false, poke, potter, practice fraud upon, put something over, putter, rook, scam, screw, sell gold bricks, serve, service, shave, shortchange, sleep with, snow, stack the cards, stick, sting, string along, swindle, take, take a dive, take in, thimblerig, throw a fight, trick, trifle, two-time, victimize, waste time