Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary - fiddle around

1. If you fiddle around or fiddle about with a machine, you do things to it to try and make it work. Two of them got out to fiddle around with the engine. = tinker PHRASAL VERB: V P with n, also V P 2. If you say that someone is fiddling around with or fiddling about with something, you mean that they are changing it in a way that you disapprove of. Right now in Congress, they’re fiddling around with the budget and so on... PHRASAL VERB: V P P n c darkgreen]disapproval