fiddling

verb

1. (form-of, gerund, participle, present)present participle and gerund of fiddle

   “He was fiddling while Rome burned.”

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)The playing of music on a fiddle.
2. (countable, uncountable)The act of fidgeting.
3. (countable, uncountable)Tweaking; manipulation.

   “[W]e, her doctors […] seemed powerless to prevent [side-effects], despite all our reassurances, and all our fiddlings and manipulations with the dosage[…]”

   “Was it deliberate that the first week of October 1961 was chosen to conduct a national survey of passenger usage? Why October of all months, when the holiday season was over and families back at work and at school? Was this a fiddling of the figures to make an unfair case against rail-dependent resorts such as those in the West Country, Norfolk, Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire, where previously overloaded summer services would now only have a handful of locals on board?”

adj

1. Of petty or trivial importance; footling

   “It was a fiddling little fault, but ultimately proved disastrous.”