tweedle

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English[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA(key): /ˈtwiːdəl/
  • Audio (AU)(file)

Verb[edit]

tweedle (third-person singular simple present tweedles, present participle tweedling, simple past and past participle tweedled)

  1. (transitive, obsolete) To handle lightly; said with reference to awkward playing on a fiddle.
    • 1881, Edwin Waugh, Tufts of Heather - Volume 1, page 21:
      “Neaw, owd lad,” said he, as he screwed, first one peg, then another, and tweedled over little fits of wailing prelude, to get the tones he wanted.
    • 1905, William Bentley, The Diary of William Bentley D.D.,, page 267:
      Hark, —his tortured catgut squals He tickles every string, to every note He bends his pliant neck.—The fond yielding Maid Is tweedled into Love.
  2. (transitive, obsolete, by extension) To influence as if by fiddling; to coax; to allure.
    Synonym: wheedle
    • 1717 January 10 (Gregorian calendar), Joseph Addison, “The Free-holder: No. 3. Sunday, December 30. [1716.]”, in The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq; […], volume IV, London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], published 1721, →OCLC:
      A fiddler brought in with him a body of lusty young fellows, whom he had tweedled into the service.
    • 1897, M. Gerturde Fulton, “When Vincent Played the Title Rôle”, in The Vassar Miscellany, volume 27, page 141:
      But I tweedled him into letting you try, and here you are, a real member of the company.
  3. To twiddle.
    • 1842, Samuel Warren, Ten Thousand A-year - Volume 1, page 59:
      As it was, he tweedled the letter about in his hands for about five minutes, in a musing mood, and then stepped with it into Mr. Gammon's room.
    • 1845 August 16, “Mrs. Mark Luke; or, West Country Exclusives”, in Littell's Living Age, volume 6, page 318:
      Bob Pirgivie now tweedled his thumbs in double quick time, and rapidly sent around queer horizontal glances under his shaggy brows.
    • 2007, Bryan Butikofer, Rise of the Weaponsmaster, page 168:
      He blinked slowly and tweedled his long brown mustache between his fingers.
    • 2008, Heidi Julavits, The Uses of Enchantment, page 51:
      Mary noticed Gaby absently tweedling the green ribbon hanging from her coat's buttonhole.
    • 2011, James Blish, Vor:
      John Hammerkein, the bulky, slow-voiced communications officer, tweedled knobs in the far corner, under the bulletin board where the field's traffic pattern was posted.
    • 2021, Ronald E. Goodwin, The New Deal and Texas History, page 63:
      he (Driver) leaned back in his easy chair and playfully tweedled the ears of his devoted dog, who was curled up cat-like fashion in his master's lap.
  4. (UK, slang) To sell fake jewellery as genuine.
    • 1925, Eustace Jervis, Twenty-five Years in Six Prisons, page 17:
      I am afraid that the knowing author of the “cracking a-crib” book would be flummoxed by tweedling.
    • 2014, Dan Kavanagh, Duffy:
      Girls, smokes, bit of smack, mossing, tweedling; a very democratic villain, Mr Salvatore.
  5. To make a shrill or trilling sound
    • 1861, Mary Granville Delany, The Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville, page 182:
      Yesterday I dined at the Percivals, and tweedled away upon a lovely harpsichord, and I was not bid to “mind my time.”
    • 2002, Carole Nelson Douglas, Cat in a Midnight Choir, page 90:
      Something tweedled, and Temple jumped. Every new car had its own literal bells and whistles that told you to take the key out of the ignition, or put your seat belt on, or to turn off your headlights.
    • 2010, Carolyn J. Rose, Mike Nettleton, Sometimes a Great Commotion:
      From deep inside my purse, my cell phone tweedled the opening bars of “Start Me Up.”
  6. To say in a high-pitched voice.
    • 2009, Michael Frayn, Headlong:
      Hurt that the Churts and I were exchanging fatuities over yet another second-rate painting instead of tweedling appreciatively over the extraordinary and beautiful child she was rocking on the other side of the room?
    • 2009, Michael D. Lieberman, The Tale of Mark Levine, page 184:
      "Oh, bien sur. Monsieur Raphael has only the kindest things to say," Azter tweedled. “Always.”
  7. To trifle or play.
    • 1941, United States. Congress. House. Committee on the Judiciary, Hearings, page 248:
      That exemption was not intended to be a hair splitting elusive hope to be tweedled away by administrative interpretation.
    • 2008, Bernard Lown, Prescription for Survival:
      Intellectual tweedling is not within my character.
    • 2015, Richard Boon, About Hare: The Playwright and the Work:
      There aren't many things that make playwriting easy, but the fluency of the English language is a tremendous help. Now if you choose to write in Ur Chinese, you haven't got that, you've only got the meaning of what is being said. And that was bracing, after years of tweedling round with words.
    • 2021, Donald Barthelme, Charles McGrath, Donald Barthelme: Collected Stories:
      The organization is not to be tweedled with.
  8. To go; to proceed without much enthusiasm.
    • 1907, Montana Horticultural Society, Report of Proceedings of the Annual Session, page 24:
      You all have undoubtedly noticed men in the rural pursuits tweedling along through life and finally end it all identical with what it was when they began: no better, no worse.
    • 2009, Jef Mallett, Trizophrenia: Inside the Minds of a Triathlete:
      moving slowly but moving nonetheless; and close enough that if I quit and he kept tweedling along, he would finish with more miles than I and I'd be even more depressed long after I stopped shivering. He did keep tweedling along, but so did I.
    • 2013, Stephen Dobyns, Saratoga Strongbox:
      What was discretion but chickenheartedness and a capitulation to age? If I tweedled back to Saratoga without doing anything, then I might as well kiss Rosemary good-bye.
    • 2019, Philip Barnard, Hilary Emmett, Stephen Shapiro, The Oxford Handbook of Charles Brockden Brown, page 85:
      In the first part of the scene, the Frenchman dominates the monkey while tweedling along blithely as his Saint-Dominguan servants look with confusion on what surrounds them.
  9. (of two people) To move or speak in unison (like Tweedledum and Tweedledee)
    • 1919, Nell Speed, Tripping With the Tucker Twins:
      "I shall feel myself a failure as a chaperone surely," remarked Mrs.Green. "We think you a tremendous success," tweedled the twins.
    • 1934, Latham R. Reed, Frankie in Wonderland, page 17:
      “Why, they're tweedling now, " said little Frankie and sure enough they were, and tweedling in perfect unison too, without any expression whatsoever.“
    • 2021, Emma Speed Sampson, The Carter Girls of Carter House:
      " […] cold storage,” soothed Page Allison. “Not a chance,” tweedled the twins.

Derived terms[edit]

Noun[edit]

tweedle (plural tweedles)

  1. A sound of the kind made by a fiddle.
  2. (UK, slang) A confidence trick in which fake jewellery is sold as genuine.
    • 2013, John Pearson, The Profession of Violence: The Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins:
      Reggie had a way with him. People trusted him, and he could always pick up a few pounds when he needed them from the jargoons and the tweedle.

Anagrams[edit]

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