fiddlesticks

«fiddlesticks» in Mova's school dictionary: a gentle exclamation of annoyance, used instead of a… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

exclamation (fiddlesticks!); noun (old: fiddlestick, fiddlesticks)

meaning for a pupil

1) (mild, old-fashioned) a gentle exclamation of annoyance, used instead of a swear word: «Oh, fiddlesticks!» tree →

2) (old-fashioned) nonsense: «Fiddlesticks! That's not true.» tree →

3) (literal, rare) the bow used to play a fiddle (violin). tree →

sense in the lessons

A very mild, quaint, often funny stand-in for swearing, used by grandparents, cartoon characters and people who don't want to swear in front of children. Old-fashioned, humorous, UK and US.

examples

• Oh, fiddlesticks, I've dropped my glasses again. tree →
• "Fiddlesticks!" cried Granny when the cake sank. tree →
• Fiddlesticks, it's raining and I forgot my brolly. tree →
• "You're too old to climb trees." "Fiddlesticks!" said Grandad. tree →
• The cartoon mouse squeaked, "Fiddlesticks!" tree →
• Miss Brown says "fiddlesticks" instead of swearing. tree →
• Fiddlesticks! I've missed the bus. tree →
• "Fiddlesticks" sounds so silly that everyone laughed. tree →

note

Trap: it is not rude at all; it sounds funny and old. It can mean «nonsense» when someone disagrees. Plain words: «oh no», «damn», «rubbish».

In the corpora

• "Fiddlesticks!" is an old-fashioned mild word for annoyance instead of a real swear.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «fiddlesticks» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.