How To Use Fiddling In A Sentence

Outwardly tough, aloof and cynical, she does a good deal of nail-chewing and fiddling with a cigarette as she decides whether Jack can be trusted.
What people want in a period of financial instability is certainty, not fiddling. Times, Sunday Times
It becomes more difficult to be angry at politicians fiddling their expenses if we are weeping with them over their personal tragedies. Times, Sunday Times
a fiddling sum of money
It's wonderful to work with someone whose changes and ideas for the art are obviously concerned with the success of the illustration itself and how it works in the book, and not simply one-sided fiddling and rearranging based on individual preference or a stilting focus on the exactness of how a scene was imagined originally. The art of Leviathan, Part Two: An interview with Keith Thompson

There is no question of fiddling the figures here.
_ -- After two hours fiddling about we managed to attach our fore and aft hawsers to the "Aquitania," and after breakfast we went on board our new home. The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde"
If his nervous demeanour - fiddling with his cigarette box, avoiding eye contact - rather belies his confidence with a camera, his work fortunately speaks for itself.
The sooner we quit fiddling with otiose sanctions against Iran, the sooner we can begin crafting containment and deterrence strategies that are actually effective. Michael Hughes: Who Cares If Iran Goes Nuclear?
These companies are not the only ones fiddling their figures.
Manufacturers attempt to defend their products by claiming that drivers with access to a big dashboard screen are less prone to fiddling with their smartphones. Times, Sunday Times
Once the company had stopped fiddling about with three-wheelers and converted post office vans, it developed a recipe that served it well for nigh on 30 years.
She turned her face down while fiddling with her purse to hide her frown of disappointment.
The Swordsmen's techno knob fiddling adds an effective acid house wash to the song's coy lyrical interplay.
The dangers of fiddling further with tax relief like this are threefold. Times, Sunday Times
POLICE fiddling crime figures must be made a criminal offence. The Sun
If I had stopped to guess I would probably have considered the author a longicorn beetle or some fiddling orthopter. Edge of the Jungle
Yet I notice how much he is fiddling with a blue string bracelet around his wrist. Times, Sunday Times
Soon we were above ground in a silvery twelve-seater custom van, my seatmate fiddling with a loaded ashtray, fine gray dust sprinkling his shiny black tasseled loafers.
There must be people fiddling the books there, or stealing from the cookie jar, or -?
The knight had pushed the vizor of his helmet back to be sociable, and he was fiddling with the knots on the ropes that tied the lady to the tree and not getting anywhere. Chandler: Not a snowflake* kinda guy
It deliberately puts in a lot of fiddling little details that drag out the story.
She sat there fiddling around, and I turned my attention to the web.
A little fiddling and the addition of the crystals on each set as well as the mirrors-simple polished lenticular lenses that any glassworker could make-had made it possible to have images and the audible voices of the two users. Storm Breaking
It's not as important as the flavor, but part of what I'm doing at teatime is taking time out from whatever else I was doing, and fiddling with my tea or hot chocolate helps with that. Barnstorming on an Invisible Segway
She was fiddling with her table napkin nervously.
Managers bullying staff into fiddling cancer figures. Times, Sunday Times
I was constantly fiddling with it. The Sun
Jack fidgeted restlessly, fiddling with the chocolate bar in his hand.
Now I'm having a ball just fiddling around and discovering how it works (which is basically how I've learnt everything I know about computers and most other things in life).
No fiddling with keys on dark, damp mornings and you're off the drive far quicker after pressing the brake pedal and pushing the start button.
This amuses me because "turd-polishing" is a common phrase bandied around SFF workshops, meaning the act of fiddling with the sentences and commas in an essentially broken narrative. I guess i picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue
Britten's setting is mimetic and operatic, the piano part consisting of a stylisation of the boy's fiddling, notated on one stave only.
On a mobile device, usability is key when there is so little time or functionality for fiddling with menus, pop-ups or mousing around.
The only danger is you may end up spending more time fiddling with buttons and poring over data than you do outdoors. The Sun
At the end the boy's open-stringed fiddling turns into arpeggios of A major and minor, and disperses in semiquaver thirds, now floating up instead of down.
A large proportion of farmers found to be fiddling the system are based within three kilometres of the border with the North.
Delia loosed Keefer, who began fiddling with the roseate buttons. A THEORY OF RELATIVITY
M finally stopped fiddling with her BlackBerry and examined the accoutrements with an expert eye, pulling and buckling the straps against my flesh. Times, Sunday Times
Should I tell a colleague to stop fiddling expenses? Times, Sunday Times
He uncrumpled the bag from around the water bottle and let the light flimsy plastic drift down behind him, idly fiddling with opening the bottle.
Indeed, it's hard to believe that the young woman sprawled on the floor in her jeans and pink plimsolls, fiddling with her earrings, is going to let any of it go to her head.
She kept fiddling with her halter, but nothing could hide the hickeys Nick had given her.
Fiddling with the rules of the conclave is a perennial pasttime of pontiffs, but one long-term tradition is that the Pope must receive a vote from two-thirds plus one of the cardinals present. 04/15/2005
Make a list of outdoor tasks that need doing at the beginning of the week and stick to it - fiddling around spontaneously can waste hours.
It's so annoying,the way she keeps fiddling about with her hair.
She used the creature far more than Dorothy, as was natural and right enough; and had mounted it that day to escape what she called her chum's "everlasting fiddling. Dorothy's Travels
They were also likely to be less tolerant of corrupt behaviour, such as fiddling expenses, but only if such fiddles were not the norm in the country. Times, Sunday Times
Success is what we're after, not fiddling around debating things to do with the internal workings of the party.
She bustled around, fussing and fiddling with her clothes.
His characters are perpetrators and victims of petty fiddling and systemic corruption. Times, Sunday Times
If all this seems like too much fiddling around, you also could install an electronic timer and a drip hose to each plant.
But show bosses are now fiddling around with the timeline to make it fluid enough for him to reappear. The Sun
After fiddling with the tiny shower-head Polly managed to get a spray rather than a trickle of lukewarm water.
She was fiddling self-consciously with her wedding ring.
Solutions do not lie in tinkering with the system, fiddling while Earth burns.
Each performer began fiddling, playing piano, and stepdancing at a very early age. CapeCodToday Blog Chowder
She was at her desk in the living room, fiddling with a deck of cards.
I fiddle as a cook all the time, but fiddling as a baker is something I don't always do so comfortably. Archive 2009-04-01
He was also a fierce critic of what he saw as expenses fiddling by his fellow MEPs. Times, Sunday Times
Others took a more direct-action approach: flicking pencils, playing with gum, fiddling with their do-rags, snapping rubber bands - an apparently inexhaustible repertoire of ‘acting out,’ as the school psychologists say.
But show bosses are now fiddling around with the timeline to make it fluid enough for him to reappear. The Sun
The next day Ginny awoke with a jump: Johnny was in her room fiddling with her radio and had turned on Radio Two at full volume.
The first bit of fiddling involves bending the LED leads and fitting them into their little black housing cups which you have inserted into the holes in the faceplate.
This is necessary because fiddling the regimental books is clearly the action of a bounder and a cad, and shows an unheroic concern for money.
I've been passed more than once on the race course by a Laser sailor with a mainsheet clinched firmly in his teeth while I was fiddling to get something positioned just right.
He was also a fierce critic of what he saw as expenses fiddling by his fellow MEPs. Times, Sunday Times
I don't have the right tools to start fiddling around with the engine.
‘I prefer drawing,’ I offered, fiddling with my pencil a little.
The deft fiddling of a bright new member, Eleanor Bartsch, partnered the fruity bassooning of Cynthia Cameron Fix, with gambist Duncan Pledger and Yount in the continuo roles for two contrapuntal ensemble showpieces by Tarquinio Marula. Undefined
He was standing next to me with a bag at his feet and he kept dipping into this bag and fiddling about with something.
While he waited for me he was in the sitting room, fiddling with his guitar. Times, Sunday Times
The idea, I suppose, is that while Santa was fiddling the lock his reindeer would hover over the driveway.
This is where, every year, the world's keenest young chefs have come to stand for hours over long stainless steel tops podding peas, fiddling with strange foodstuffs and helping in the minutely detailed preparations of the 44 dishes served to each of the 50 privileged customers every night. How a wartime romance gave birth to the best restaurant in the world
He's noodling, fiddling, practicing, trying to get anything interesting to come out.
Some have said that tweeting during a tragedy is akin to fiddling while Rome burns, that it is evidence of a narcissistic soul. “Who, If I Cried Out, Would Hear Me?” On Twitter, Tales And Tragedy | Her Bad Mother
The rest is fiddling around the edges. Times, Sunday Times
Across Scotland, 1450 were caught fiddling the system to the tune of £10m - again only a fraction of total losses.
The work in the first phase of refurbishment has fortunately not been confined to replastering the ornate ceiling and fiddling about with the organ.
Tips on how to achieve contentment include regular holidays, scheduled time alone with a partner, plenty of exercise, fiddling with motorbikes, and cutting out television.
That's a lot of time spent fiddling with the steering wheel in a traffic queue.
We found out that she had been fiddling for years
He scowls at the drama on the television and starts fiddling with the remote control.
For 130 miles we plowed through this nebulous and speculative world, peopling it, unpeopling it, fiddling like gods with its probable geology.
Then there's no way of expense fiddling. The Sun
Stop fiddling about with your hair - it looks fine.
They run a family business in which senior members of the family have been fiddling the accounts. Times, Sunday Times
China is going to go from building no aircraft carriers currently it is fiddling around with an uncompleted ex-Russian one to a 93,000 tonner? China to Build Supercarrier, Taiwan unveils upgraded IDF
The dangers of fiddling further with tax relief like this are threefold. Times, Sunday Times
He sat frowning over a pile of reports, his curly brown hair already rumpled from his constant fiddling with it. THE LAST TEMPTATION
This is a marvellous technology, but at the same time there are people fiddling around.
They are rebuked swiftly for fiddling with pens or not paying attention as the teacher fires questions to test their knowledge. Times, Sunday Times
The whole recovery from that crisis was based on fiddling the figures.
Yesterday, I missed her - ironically, I was too busy fiddling the monopod onto the camera.
He was fiddling with the packet now and pulled out the chit. WHITE LIES
Thankfully a little more fiddling got the tyre pumping up okay.
The first bit of fiddling involves bending the LED leads and fitting them into their little black housing cups which you have inserted into the holes in the faceplate.
I was only awakened by the sound of someone fiddling with the bolt on the door.
I don't have the right tools to start fiddling around with the engine.
Seeking to constrain the supply of new properties and fiddling with the tax system at the margins is not a housing policy. Times, Sunday Times
Richard Hammond left his computer team behind in London, fiddling with a confusing virtual Earth, to help film genuinely terrifying footage of a scientist climbing the "safe" outer wall to "put some fresh lava in a science flask", like a year-four project, before realising he was about to immolate and running away like a gurl in a white suit, as the world would. Rewind TV: The Hour; The Apprentice; Show Me the Funny; Imagine; Richard Hammond's Journey to the Centre of the Planet; Twenty Twelve – review
It requires a bit of fiddling but the BBC swingometer allows you to figure out what the benefits of tactical voting would be.
While the West is busily burning itself to the ground, these guys are busy ‘binding the spirit’ of the Blessed Virgin and fiddling around with other time-wasting junk.
We have already had the scandal of the closed lists and now we find that there is another way of fiddling the figures by putting more people on the deferred list.
Melan came back to the door and peered out at him, a single figure stood in the middle of a corridor, fiddling with his hoodie like a fumbling child.
He has never bored of it, messing around apparently endlessly with tyres, rejigging qualification over and over again, fiddling on with aerodynamics and banning everything from launch controls to automatic gearboxes all with the express intention of making the sport more exciting and getting people like myself to chunter: Bloody typical: just when I finally worked out what data downlink telemetry does, they get rid of it. Introducing Bernie the mogul's next blockbuster: Star Wars F1? | Harry Pearson
In the meantime, fiddling and footering is about the best he can do.
No fiddling around with headrests and seatbelts: just a single press of a button and one side went flat, making ample room for three bikes.
There are many faults in my character but sitting indoors fiddling with html code while the sun shines and the birds sing is not among them.
I took the liberty of fiddling with the scansion in Lines 3 and 7.
It's so annoying,the way she keeps fiddling about with her hair.
Of course, their definition or, most irritating, the definitition in most portraiture books of what is the browline is so vague and their cyclopic fiddling with the thumb on the brush gives such imprecise measurements that you can fit just about anything to their preconceptions. Pyle on Light and Shadow
Seeking to constrain the supply of new properties and fiddling with the tax system at the margins is not a housing policy. Times, Sunday Times
Unsatisifed, i nixed two of the segments and kept the accelerando and started fiddling with its placement. Breaking in the new blog
He got fired from the Daily Clarion for fiddling expenses, you know. DEAD BEAT
Whilst you are fiddling with the electrics the gremlins will conspire to kick the engine into life.
The small ones are a lot of stone and skin and fiddling about. The Sun
I can't walk into a nuclear power plant and start fiddling with knobs and dials, without causing a nuclear meltdown.
Some of them were fiddling with the ball, while others fingered the handle of the bat, and others just sat with their feet against the gate before them with a tense look on their faces.
I was heading past the hayfield to the dump when I noticed the ringing in my ears again; and then, beside me—an angel, fiddling with the seat belt. I Hear the Voices of Angels
I sat there staring it down, fiddling with the locket around my neck until I decided I needed to just get it over with.
Soon we were above ground in a silvery twelve-seater custom van, my seatmate fiddling with a loaded ashtray, fine gray dust sprinkling his shiny black tasseled loafers.
And the things that sergers can do well, such as overcasting raw edges, making blind hems, rolled, hems, and the like, a standard sewing machine can usually do, although it may take a bit more fiddling. A Thank-You Note - A Dress A Day
Even government ministers were wriggling inside the jampot fiddling their expenses. The 'big society' is collapsing under its inherent absurdity | Catherine Bennett
I could now water everything on the farm just by turning on the faucet and fiddling with a few valves from time to time.
There were doors on both sides of the corridor and a man was fiddling with the lock of one them about twenty feet in front of me. Broken Lives
They had three children, all born at home; there is an anecdote of John fiddling around on a motorbike while Kirsteen, screaming, gave birth upstairs to son Sam.
Manufacturers attempt to defend their products by claiming that drivers with access to a big dashboard screen are less prone to fiddling with their smartphones. Times, Sunday Times
They run a family business in which senior members of the family have been fiddling the accounts. Times, Sunday Times
While he waited for me he was in the sitting room, fiddling with his guitar. Times, Sunday Times
With everything else you just spend your time fiddling around after the fact.
She looked down, avoiding eye contact as she brought her hands up, fiddling with her fingers and picking at her newly painted fingernails.
Canon powershot 5mp digital camera normalizer jackstraw you to see at a prothalamion all of the billboard that pyrope been pelecypodous consecutively day. is unvanquishable with a elixophyllin that cupressus the coriandrum of deist on a fiddling wrangle. POWET.TV
She was sitting at her desk in the living room, fiddling with a pencil and drinking from a bottle of beer.
‘Canting and lying,’ — said Willie, which produced a thundering laugh; ‘but I am teaching the callant a better trade, and that is, feasting and fiddling.’ Redgauntlet
His characters are perpetrators and victims of petty fiddling and systemic corruption. Times, Sunday Times
Missy J. and I are sitting here at the kitchen table fiddling around on our laptops and watching The Last Sign, which is almost as strange as the one we watched last night, The Final Cut.
A second later he heard steps on the stairs, and popped his head over the back of the couch to see Kate plunking down the stairs fiddling with the straps on her dress.
Direct from Dublin, it's a blend of fancy footwork, furious fiddling and moody lighting and stage effects.
That fiddling, parading fellow [you know who I mean] made us wait for him two hours, and I to go to a journey I disliked! only for the sake of having a little more tawdry upon his housings; which he had hurried his sadler to put on, to make him look fine, being to escort his dear Madam Howe, and her fair daughter. Clarissa Harlowe
He's fiddling around in the garage.
The waiting list report from Audit Scotland, while clearing trusts of fiddling figures, found some operating a two-tier system, with patients being shunted on to ‘deferred’ lists.
They bustled along talking to their invisible friends, or stood abstracted on the kerb the fingers of one hand fiddling away in the palm of the other, or, like iAnna footled fanatically with a filmy square-foot. The Guardian World News
His characters are perpetrators and victims of petty fiddling and systemic corruption. Times, Sunday Times
It has denied that it's fiddling prices on its online promotion, in response to a snowstorm of customer complaints.
She was fiddling self-consciously with her wedding ring.
Yeah, like it's on a par with hardcore kiddie fiddling porn, isn't it?
I don't have the right tools to start fiddling around with the engine.
Watching a kid fiddling around with fried bread.
I come from a family where alternative therapies have long been used, and have even subjected myself to someone fiddling with my toes and thereupon telling me what was wrong with my head.
It took quite a time of fiddling about before I found a comfortable position and then, in cases where driving is shared, the whole rigmarole has to be endured all over again when you get back behind the wheel.
This last Saturday was particularly productive as John's late night fiddling around produced some music that lyrics I wrote over the afternoon on Sat perfectly fit.
I have been spending a bit more time than usual fiddling around at Technorati, recently, and I noticed that there is a tidal movement of Get Real's Technorati rank.
I don't have the right tools to start fiddling around with the engine.
And I haven't got time or energy for faffing and fiddling for a few days, anyway
There seems to be some surprise in political circles here that an international company such as Gama might have been fiddling their workforce.
This Minoan etymon is my attempt at better explaining (via expected Etruscan *caupaθ) the source of both Germanic *haubida- and Latin caput in a way that an over-cited Indo-European root (*)*kaput- just can't convincingly accomplish without fiddling with the phonetics. Archive 2010-07-01
Yet he's fiddling nervously with his beard while looking over his shoulder as the waitress brings drinks. The Sun
THE public has a right to know the name of any MP probed for alleged expenses fiddling. The Sun
The small ones are a lot of stone and skin and fiddling about. The Sun
The Constitution is burning, and these guys are fiddling and diddling!
She was fiddling with the oven when she noticed I had graced her with my presence.
What better site to choose than one where people will be fiddling about in their pockets for change?
At the time, I'm just fiddling around setting the thing up, and I can't remember whether that's good or bad.
Any ale drapers and mutton mongers at the back should sit up straight and stop fiddling with their inexpressibles. Times, Sunday Times
It may take hours of fiddling about with different backdrops of paper or cloth to get the colour right.
Mairead stole the show with her flamboyance and nimble fingered fiddling.
To be compared to a surgery-addicted, alleged kiddy-fiddling loon is not funny, it is highly offensive . IRA Demand BBC Apology over Jacko Jibe
Right now in Congress, they're fiddling around with the budget and so on.
The only danger is you may end up spending more time fiddling with buttons and poring over data than you do outdoors. The Sun
Under this, the Thaksinites' new political vehicle, the People's Power Party(PPP), and two of its coalition partners face disbandment for alleged vote-fiddling in December's elections.
He was just fiddling around with the things on his desk.
In rougher, gloriously weedy places, I don't remember watching as many gold-banded hoverflies fiddling with the nipplewort. Country diary: Wenlock Edge
It took me all of two minutes to get working, plus an hour of perfectionist fiddling to get this pretty map.
Frank and Joseph were tuning their respective guitars, while Alistair was fiddling with a screw on his drum set.
Well, I can't finish fiddling the figures on my financial forecast tonight, because I need a few facts that I have yet to find out.
Oh, since I'm still fiddling around in here… as you can see, the new computer desk arrived today.
One involves fiddling about with the ink pot, the other winding it up and neither works quite as well as a Biro or a quartz watch. Times, Sunday Times
Stop fiddling about with your hair - it looks fine.
It's so annoying,the way she keeps fiddling about with her hair.
None of them needs any last-minute fiddling about with: they are just simple, earthy, honest-to-goodness dishes that will hopefully bring a smile to your face.
‘I'm a freak,’ he said, still fiddling with something in his hands.
Fiddling became fraud when enrolments were rigged.
While fiddling around in a recording studio, he stumbled on the technique of recording at half speed and then playing back at full speed.
I don't want games, I don't want fiddling around, one-night-stand junk, etc.
There were doors on both sides of the corridor and a man was fiddling with the lock of one them about twenty feet in front of me. Broken Lives
A graph of relative drag is included for those interested in the fiddling details [see below].
She was at her desk in the living room, fiddling with a deck of cards.
Keen-eyed observers among you will notice that I've been fiddling with my template once again.
They were also likely to be less tolerant of corrupt behaviour, such as fiddling expenses, but only if such fiddles were not the norm in the country. Times, Sunday Times
Dorian unloosened his tie, fiddling with the cuff of his shirt and checking it in the mirror.
Stop fiddling about with your hair - it looks fine.
It's so annoying,the way she keeps fiddling about with her hair.
Right now in Congress, they're fiddling around with the budget and so on.
Wong accused his lawyers of negligence and his opponent's lawyers of fiddling their charges.
He insists that her veins were swimming merrily with a drug called Nembutal, which would have made the superstar a teeny-weeny bit too unconscious to go about fiddling with those pesky tubes. SLACKERJACK – Superstar Chefs
I began fiddling with the disposable razor from my washbag.
There was much patting of hair, lots of cufflink fiddling, and nervous smiles to the audience when eye contact was made. Nick Clegg: from hero to hate figure
They are rebuked swiftly for fiddling with pens or not paying attention as the teacher fires questions to test their knowledge. Times, Sunday Times
I've been fiddling about with this design for ages, but I'm still not happy with it.

How To Use Fiddling In A Sentence

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