Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a petty lie; as v., to lie.

c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Taradiddle. A fib, or falsity.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) .
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1786].
1824		R.B. Peake Americans Abroad I i: Unless the Liverpool people tell taradiddles, the Londoners weigh one hundred thousand pounds each.
1830		R.B. Peake Haunted Inn I ii: You know you are tarrididdling, Jenny!
1834		‘Jack Downing’ Andrew Jackson 157: The Ingins had bin deceived with tarradiddles.
1840		John Bull (London) 9 Feb. 7/1: The Home Secretary telling — what the little girls at school [...] call a taradiddle.
1846		Bell’s Life in Sydney 4 July 3/2: Nathan was proceeding with a list of tarrididles, and pretended to know as much of the lady’s alleged piquant and private adventures as his ancient namesake did of the libidinous freaks of Madam Bathsheba.
1847		‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 14 Mar. 3/2: You said I was telling tarradiddles.
1866		J. Greenwood Night in a Workhouse 7: This taradiddle I invented to account for the look of my hands.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1883		Sheffield Dly Teleg. 25 July 2/4: A Radical, and therefore incapable as George Washington himself of telling a taradiddle.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 11 Jul. 6/1: The whole thing is unfounded. There’s not a word of truth in the whole paragraph. […] It’s all an unblushing taradiddle.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 1 Apr. 1/1: His tarradiddle about our wool, and hardwood exhibits making such a profound impression.
1899		A. Binstead Houndsditch Day by Day 57: They say that a woman always has an idea that she can tell one taradiddle and then pull up.
1901		E.W. Hornung Black Mask (1992) 192: I had told my very necessary tarradiddle.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 16 Dec. 4/7: Though we list to tarradiddles vast, / And eulogise their derring-do and diction, / The cake for stories staggering is passed / To a champion in the Famous Fields of Fiction.
1906		Civil & Milit. Gaz. (Lahore) 16 Nov. 5/4: [T]ake the dhobie who swears on his Koran, that he only washes for you. Well you may be sure that in the first place that is a tarrydiddle.
1911		Gem 23 Sept. 24: Simply that we were two of the most accomplished tarradiddle spinners on record.
1914		Truth (Melbourne) 31 Jan. 3/4: [headline] Takes Tickets and Tells Tarradiddles. Bus Conductor’s Lapse.
1927		E. Wallace Squeaker (1950) 75: And as to your little tarradiddle – I’m ashamed of you!
1933		E. Mordaunt Mrs. Van Kleek (1949) 34: if there was any taradiddle in the world it was that youth was the happiest time of one’s life.
1937		Sun. Times (Perth) 30 May 13/2: But girls should take no notice of those tarradiddles told.
1940		in W.C. Fields By Himself (1974) 173: You are a badems, pipe-smoking old man and as full of tarradiddle as an egg is goodie.
1945		N. Marsh Died in the Wool (1963) 80: Why on earth, I wonder, have you produced this ridiculous tarradiddle.
1959		A. Sinclair My Friend Judas (1963) 19: All cock, taradiddle and phoney fine phrases.
1973		A. Buckeridge Speaking of Jennings (1989) 122: What fantastic tarradiddles they concocted to impress their friends!

2. in attrib. use of sense 1.

1908

Sun. Times (Perth) 16 Aug. 4/7: This is a story without embellishments. It likewise has no tarradiddle trimmings nor is it distorted in any way.