Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. the penis.

1523		Skelton Garlande or Chapelet of Laurell line 740: What blunderar is yonder, that playth didil diddil? He fyndith fals mesuris out of his fonde fiddill.
1598		Marston Metamorphosis of Pigmalions Satyre 1 28: I’le not endure that with thine instrument (Thy Gambo violl plac’d betwixt thy thighes, Wherein the best part of thy courtship lyes) [...] Come, now let’s heare thy mounting Mercurie, What mum? giue him his fiddle once againe, Or he’s more mute than a Pythagoran.
1632		R. Brome Covent-Garden Weeded I i: Hells broke loose; this comes of your new fingle-fangle fashion, your preposterous Italian way forsooth [...] The very first twang of your fiddle guts has broke all, and conjur’d a legion of devils among us.
1654		T. Killigrew Thomaso Pt I IV ii: You let me cool so long upon’t, my desire is over; and if she do’s not use me mighty kindly, and put my toy in tune, my Fiddle will make no Musick.
c.1690		‘Seven Merry Wives’ in Pepys Ballads (1987) V 413: He seldom will play His kind Wile a sweet Lesson, but ... complains that his Fiddle is still out of Tune.
1698		‘No True Love between Man and Woman’ Poetical Remaines of Rochester, Etherege, and Others 113: ’Tis her Men adore all, / That has the best Fiddle Priapus to tickle.
c.1707		‘The Merchant & the Fidler’s Wife’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) IV 154: O Robin thou’st lost thy Fiddle. / If I have lost my Fiddle, / Then I am a Man undone.
1721		‘On the Death of Mr. Viner, by Dean Parnelle’ in Pleasures of Coition n.p.: Those Fingers, which such Pleasure did convey, / Must now become to stupid Worms a prey: / The grateful fiddle will for ever stand / A silent Mourner for its Master’s Hand.
c.1760		‘The Rakes of Stony Batter’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 339: Play me Bobbin Joan, or else I’ll break your fiddle.
1773		‘Green Sleeves’ Burns Merry Muses of Caledonia (1965) 84: I shall rouse her in the morn, / My fiddle and I thegither.
c.1785		‘The New Dhooraling’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 401: No harpsichord, fiddle or tuneful spring / Can equal M’Lean and his Dhooraling.
c.1800		‘The Rakes of Stony Batter’ in Holloway & Black I (1975) 224: Play me Bobbin Joan, or else I’ll break your fiddle.
1833		‘The Fiddle’ in Fal-Lal Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 20: And then without any more ado, / Young Jockey tuned his fiddle.

2. the vagina.

1601		Marston Jacke Drums Entertainment Act I: The wenches, ha, when I was a yong man and could tickle the Minikin, and made them crie thankes sweete Timothy, I had the best stroke, the sweetest touch, but now (I may sigh to say it) I am falne from the Fidle.
1632		R. Brome Covent-Garden Weeded I i: Were you but now all o’th heigh to set your self out for a signe with your fiddle cum twang, and promise such wonders, forsooth, and will not now be seen.
1639		J. Shirley Gentleman of Venice III iv: [Let them] wait and want The knowledge of thy fiddle my dear Dowsabel.
1655		Young-Mans Tryal in Williams Dict. Sexual Lang. I 478: [She wishes] for one to play on her Fiddle.
1660		Select Quaeries 2 9: Whether Diana his Mistris does not carry a Fiddle in her A-, because of the frequent fingering of her Instrument.
1674		‘Trap’ in Pepys Ballads (1987) III 17: My little Fiddle should not be plaid on.
1686		‘On the Ladies of Honour’ Harleian Mss. 7319.428: A yard of a pizzle Is the length of the thing can best please her Fiddle .
1694		Comforts of Whoreing 29: [She pleases her client] with her various Motions and Activity, that his Breech Dances, Capers and Firks it in as good Time as if she had a Fidle in her Commodity.
1707		‘My Thing is my Own’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) I 195: I thank’d him for nothing, but bid him be gone, / For my little Fiddle should not be plaid on.
1725		View of London & Westminster (2nd part) 49: [in a list of prostitutes] Miss Fiddle [Is Visited] By Colonel Fire-lock.
a.1749		Robertson of Struan ‘A Song’ Poems (1752) 275: You may thrum on the Fiddle, as she can well dance / And like two merry Beggars may feast.
c.1800		‘Duncan Macleerie’ Burns Merry Muses of Caledonia (1965) 177: Duncan Macleerie has got a new fiddle, / It’s strung wi’ hair, and a hole in the middle, / An’ ay when he plays on’t, his wife looks sae cheery.
1840		‘My Thing Is My Own’ in Fake Away Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 284: My little fiddle should not be play’d on .
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1929		Ethel Waters ‘My Handy Man’ 🎵 He shakes my ashes, greases my griddle, / Churns my butter, strokes my fiddle; / My man is such a handy man!
1964		J. Thompson Pop. 1280 in Four Novels (1983) 478: That’s what she keeps you around for, to diddle her fiddle.

3. a watchman’s rattle (the precursor of the policeman’s whistle).

1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.

4. (UK prison) a primitive ‘machine’ used in prison to ‘pick’ oakum.

1877

Five Years’ Penal Servitude 44: The taskmaster warder came in, bringing with him the ‘fiddle’ on which I was to play a tune called ‘Four pounds of oakum a day.’ It consisted of nothing but a piece of rope and a long crooked nail.

5. (Aus.) a maize grater.

1929		(con. 1825) J. Tucker Adventures of Ralph Rashleigh cap. viii: The men [...] would steal off to the cornfields carrying, an old, tin dish covered with a grater— a fiddle, as they called it— and spend hours of the night grating the scarcely ripe cobs of maize.
1943		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. (2nd edn).

6. (N.Z.) a dressed hindquarter of mutton.

1937		(con. 1870s) ‘Genus’ Thomas (Ayson) 153: Jock Graham did a roaring trade in Dunedin by purchasing carrots in the Taieri and tying three of them to a hind leg of a sheep. This was known as a fiddle and he would hawk them through the streets and dispose of them for sixpence.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 77: fiddle 1. Hindquarter of mutton. From 1930s.

7. (N.Z.) a car radio.

2003

McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.