1
as in fidgeted
to make jerky or restless movements
the executive fiddled with a pen as she impatiently waited for the meeting to begin
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in cheated
to rob by the use of trickery or threats
conscienceless grifters who had spent their lives fiddling the naive
Synonyms & Similar Words
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of fiddled
But what does some scientist know about eating fruit, of all things, when your hamstring feels like it’s being fiddled by Satan?
—
Dan England,
Outside,
5 Feb. 2026
As Rossini stowed her purse in a tiny back office, a manager named Katie Atlas was onboarding a new employee, a young woman who fiddled nervously with her necklace.
—
Hannah Goldfield,
New Yorker,
8 Sep. 2025
Communities across the globe probably independently fiddled their way towards the invention of proto lip balms over and over.
—
Mark Hay,
Popular Science,
13 Aug. 2025
Dan England,
Outside,
5 Feb. 2026
As Rossini stowed her purse in a tiny back office, a manager named Katie Atlas was onboarding a new employee, a young woman who fiddled nervously with her necklace.
—
Hannah Goldfield,
New Yorker,
8 Sep. 2025
Communities across the globe probably independently fiddled their way towards the invention of proto lip balms over and over.
—
Mark Hay,
Popular Science,
13 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for fiddled
Verb
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One woman ordered some home furniture while two children fidgeted nearby.
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Between each dance was an excruciating silence during which network-TV producers monitored and reset their equipment while the men fidgeted onstage like excitable children.
Verb
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Revote to be held in Hempstead Candidate Caprice Rines said she and the two others vying for the seat have been cheated.
-
The fans were cheated Sunday out of a chance to see an interesting pitching matchup between Shota Imanaga and Dylan Cease, the former Cubs farmhand and former White Sox pitcher.
Verb
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The governor, at first, tossed the question to Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper.
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But the referee caught him and tossed him from the match.
Verb
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On the walls, black-and-white printouts of newspaper articles, magazines and book pages looked like they were plucked from a Pinterest board on scrapbooking.
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Despite his young age, the then 36-year-old was far from a nobody plucked from the ether, though.
Verb
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Many a club’s board would have twitched in the face of the bare data, but the chain of command above Arteta stayed the course, and the FOMO is so high that tickets for Palace away this weekend are going for £45,000 ($60,000) on resale sites.
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My jaw twitched uncontrollably.
Verb
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The performance uptick that Motorola squeezed from the 2026 Razr+ is minor at best, with results showing no significant year-over-year gains.
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There was Paris squeezed between meetings on a fleeting work trip.
Verb
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Belloumi’s 64th-minute strike with his left foot broke the deadlock in the second game of the two-leg affair and Gelhardt made sure with a low shot that squirmed past the Millwall goalkeeper.
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His Japanese guest, usually a paragon of diplomatic cool, visibly squirmed.
Verb
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The few that didn’t have hustled to catch up.
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The first inning looked promising as Yandy Diaz and Jonathan Aranda singled, and Cedric Mullins hustled his bunt attempt into a hit to load the bases.
Cite this Entry
“Fiddled.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/fiddled. Accessed 5 Jul. 2026.
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