Green’s Dictionary of Slang

fiddlestick n.

1. a sword.

1632		T. Nabbes Covent Garden II ii: Thy Fiddle-sticke shall not save thee.
1775		Sheridan Rivals (1776) V ii: absolute: Sir, I’ll explain to you [...] I intend, if she refuses to forgive me – to un-sheathe this sword – and swear – I’ll fall upon its point, and expire at her feet! sir anthony: Fall upon a fiddlestick’s end! – why, I suppose it is the very thing that will please her. Get along, you fool.

2. the penis.

1600		Marston Antonio’s Revenge III iv: O love, come on, untrusse your points, My fiddlestick wants Rozzen.
1614		Jonson Bartholomew Fair in Works (1843) 338: My Fiddle-stick does fiddle in and out too much.
1675		Fumblers-Hall 9: Jone Would-have-more: Hes but a meer Gut, a Chitterling, a fiddle-string that will make no music to a Womans Instrument; yet when I tell him on’t, he pulls it out and shakes it, and puts up his fiddle-stick again.
c.1680		‘Fumblers-Hall’ in R. Thompson Pepys’ Penny Merriments (1976) 262: [He] pulls it out and shakes it, and puts up his Fiddle-stick again.
1700		‘The Irish Hallaloo’ in Playford Pills to Purge Melancholy II 206: Their Wives are all nasty, and so are their C--ts: / But I’ll keep my Fiddle-stick out of their Cases, / They stink like Privies, a Pox on their Arses.
1788		Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies 105: [He] won her first by virtue of his fiddle-stick, and has [...] kept her in very good tune.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy IV 200: Their Wives are all nasty, and so are their [cunts] But I’ll keep my Fiddle-stick out of their Cases.
1790		Banquet of Wit 107: Old Orpheus play’d so well he mov’d Old Nick, / While thou mov’st nothing but thy fiddlestick.
1832		Satirist (London) 8 Jan. 13/2: Now Malibran is merry, O! / A-bussing of her Beriot; / His fiddlestick / She’s working quick / To the tune of Derry, derry, O!
1838		Crim.-Con. Gaz. 22 Sept. 39/2: As long as I live shall my fiddlestick move / Whilst a fair one remains in our isle.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1980		Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 194: Then there is the jargon of the […] orchestra, such as fiddling stick, fiddle bow, fiddle stick, drumstick (used for beating the drum), organ and flute and even trombone (from the in-and-out action).

3. (Scot. Und.) a spring saw.

1821

D. Haggart Autobiog. 32: I [...] succeeded in giving Barney the fiddlestick. He made his escape that same night by cutting the iron bars of his cell window.

SE in slang uses

In compounds

fiddlestick’s end (n.) [a SE fiddlestick ends in a point]

nothing; thus as excl., a dismissive retort.

1760		G. Colman Polly Honeycombe 5: A fiddle-stick’s end for Mr Ledger!
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Fiddlestick’s End. Nothing; the ends of the ancient fiddlesticks ending in a point. Hence metaphorically used to express a thing terminating in nothing.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn).
1797		Sporting Mag. June X 31: Me knighted! Fiddlestick’s end.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1788].
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1831		Navy at Home II 228: ‘Poor, fiddle stick’s end,’ said Classic [...] ‘no, no, you rogue, rich’.
1838		Thackeray Yellowplush Papers Works III (1898) 342: ‘Fiddlestick’s end!’ says Doctor Larner; ‘don’t be blushing and pritinding to ask questions: don’t we know you, Bullwig?’.
1883		R.L. Stevenson Treasure Island 16: ‘Wounded? A fiddle-stick’s end!’ said the doctor.
1900		Boys Of The Empire 11 Dec. 151: ‘His ghost? Fiddlesticks ends!’ exclaimed the stranger.