Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Nautical, the iron framework or cover forming a hatch on deck over the engine- or fire-room of a steamer.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • By opening the door the Red Un was able to command the cylinder tops, far below, and the fiddley, which is the roof of hell or a steel grating over the cylinders to walk on -- depending on whether one is used to it or not.

    Love Stories Mary Roberts Rinehart 1917

  • The shattered wreck of the lifeboat they had held lay on the fiddley beside the smashed engine-room skylight, which was covered by a tarpaulin.

    THE SEA FARMER 2010

  • It's only a little fiddley but worth the small effort.

    Knitting! FUZZARELLY 2007

  • It's only a little fiddley but worth the small effort.

    Archive 2007-04-27 FUZZARELLY 2007

  • But this took me about 3 hours and was very very fiddley.

    Tubbypaws Tubbypaws 2007

  • Which still is fiddley as I don't think I could boot into win2k and install the drivers anyway... dang!

    April 11th, 2006 curufea 2006

  • I have the iriver h140 bigger disk I find it pretty fiddley to record even though your supposed to just be able to press record and it records it doesnt always respond very well, maybee i have fat fingers.

    On-the-move recording: Some cheap/ugly alternatives? 2005

  • It was fiddley trying to even out the very tops of the egg cups, so I eventually just went for “rustic”.

    Sweet Potato Souffle | Baking Bites 2005

  • With infinite labour the Seconds got the Chief up to the fiddley, twenty feet or less out of a hundred, and straight ladders instead of a steel staircase.

    Love Stories Mary Roberts Rinehart 1917

  • The sea must a-caught hum on the upper brudge deck, carried hum clean across the fiddley, an 'banged hum head-on tull the pipe cover.

    The Sea Farmer 1914

Comments

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  • Iron framework around the hatchway opening of a ship.

    February 15, 2008