Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun One who quiddles, or busies himself about, trifles. Also
quiddler . - To spend or waste time in trifling employments, or to attend to useful subjects in a trifling or superficial manner; be of a trifling, time-wasting character.
- To criticize.
- To quiver; shiver; tremble; creep, as live flesh: as, the fish were still quiddling.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun One who wastes his energy about trifles.
- intransitive verb To spend time in trifling employments, or to attend to useful subjects in an indifferent or superficial manner; to dawdle.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb intransitive, rare To
talk nonsense or speakvaguely , towaffle - verb intransitive, rare To
spend orwaste time intrifling employments , or toattend to useful subjects in a triflingsuperficial manner.
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word quiddle.
Examples
-
Maclay found the Senate was afflicted with “a rage of speaking,” while Ames complained that his colleagues in the House “correct spelling or erase may and insert shall, and quiddle in a manner which provokes me.”
Alexander Hamilton, American Richard Brookhiser 1999
-
Maclay found the Senate was afflicted with “a rage of speaking,” while Ames complained that his colleagues in the House “correct spelling or erase may and insert shall, and quiddle in a manner which provokes me.”
Alexander Hamilton, American Richard Brookhiser 1999
-
The Englishman is very petulant and precise about his accommodation at inns, and on the roads; a quiddle about his toast and his chop, and every species of convenience, and loud and pungent in his expressions of impatience at any neglect.
-
She like to quiddle about the china-closet, prepare the salt-cellars, put the spoons straight on the table; and every day went round the parlor with her brush, dusting chairs and tables.
-
That 's the way things goes, and I should like to know who's a going to stop to quiddle with young uns?
Oldtown Folks 1869
-
She like to quiddle about the china-closet, prepare the salt-cellars, put the spoons straight on the table; and every day went round the parlor with her brush, dusting chairs and tables.
Little Men Louisa May Alcott 1860
-
The Englishman is very petulant and precise about his accommodation at inns, and on the roads; a quiddle about his toast and his chop, and every species of convenience, and loud and pungent in his expressions of impatience at any neglect.
-
The P's take us from pandowdy to pompey to pudjicky; the Q's offer qualmish, quick start, and quiddle; in R we find ramstugious, redd up, robin snow, and rumpelkammer; and S yields saluggi, say-so, and smearcase.
-
Here's a quorum of such quatches ripe for revival, ready for your quaintance: quaddle (grumble), quizzity (oddity), querken (stifle), quiddle (dawdle), querimony (complaint), queme (pleasant), quetch (go), queeve (twist in a road).
'Roads to Quoz' 2008
-
This last is a dry crust put between our gums to mump upon, when weaning time comes on, which are bad days for little ones, who would much rather quiddle the breast, as long as there is a drop to be got, but it must not be ao done in our country, for fear of making us
Gleanings of the Vintage, Or Letters to the Spiritual Edification of the ... 1813
reesetee commented on the word quiddle
One who spends time in trifling employments or attends to useful subjects in an indifferent or superficial manner; a dawdler.
March 14, 2008
qms commented on the word quiddle
His values were always a riddle;
He tended to dither and quiddle.
His unlikely hero
Was Emperor Nero,
Who set Rome afire for a fiddle.
November 13, 2015