Diddle (To)

To cheat in a small way, as “I diddled him out of … .” Edgar Allan Poe has an article on the art of “Diddling.” Rhyming slang is very common. (See Chivy.) Fiddle and diddle rhyme. “Fiddle” is slang for a sharper, and “diddle” is the act of a sharper. The suggestive rhyme was

“Hi diddle diddle!

The cat and the fiddle.”

“A certain portion of the human race

Has certainly a taste for being diddled.”

Hood: A Black Job, stanza 1.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.