Fiddle
A fiddle is any bowed string musical instrumen, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music. Fiddle playing, or fiddling, refers to various styles of music.
Quotes
- FIDDLE, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat.
- Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).
- We consider that the man who can fiddle all through one of those Virginia Reels without losing his grip, may be depended upon in any kind of musical emergency.
- Mark Twain, "The Music", Virginia city Territorial Enterprise, 10 January 1863, p. 3; as cited in The Works of Mark Twain: Early Tales & Sketches (1979), Volume 15, Part 1, p. 181, note 1.
- A variant without the word "musical" appears in Mark Twain of the Enterprise: newspaper articles & other documents, 1862-1864 (1957), p. 47.