fiddle around
phrasal verb.phrasal verb. to spend time doing small, unimportant tasks or playing with something in a nervous or aimless way.
phrasal verb. to engage in unproductive or aimless activity; to make minor, often unnecessary adjustments to something without a clear plan.
Stop fiddling around with your pen and listen to me.
He spent the whole afternoon fiddling around in the garage instead of fixing the car.
Rather than addressing the core structural issues of the software, the developers spent weeks fiddling around with the user interface colors.
often followed by the preposition 'with' when referring to a specific object.
contrast with 'tinker' (which implies a more constructive attempt to fix something) and 'mess around' (which is more general and can imply misbehavior).
He was fiddle around with the radio.He was fiddling around with the radio.the verb 'fiddle' must be conjugated to match the tense of the sentence.
Last updated April 24, 2026