"fiddling" meaning in English

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  "lang_code": "en",
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          "text": "He was fiddling while Rome burned.",
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          "word": "fiddle"
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        "present participle and gerund of fiddle"
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  "word": "fiddling"
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      "form": "fiddlings",
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        "plural"
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          "ref": "1973, Oliver Sacks, Awakenings:",
          "text": "[W]e, her doctors […] seemed powerless to prevent [side-effects], despite all our reassurances, and all our fiddlings and manipulations with the dosage[…]",
          "type": "quote"
        },
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          "ref": "2023 March 8, Howard Johnston, “Was Marples the real railway wrecker?”, in RAIL, number 978, pages 52–53:",
          "text": "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?",
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        "action of the verb to fiddle"
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  "word": "fiddling"
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
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      "examples": [
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          "text": "It was a fiddling little fault, but ultimately proved disastrous.",
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      "glosses": [
        "Of petty or trivial importance; footling"
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          "footling",
          "footling"
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  "word": "fiddling"
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  "lang_code": "en",
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          "text": "He was fiddling while Rome burned.",
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        "present participle and gerund of fiddle"
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  "word": "fiddling"
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  "forms": [
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          "ref": "1973, Oliver Sacks, Awakenings:",
          "text": "[W]e, her doctors […] seemed powerless to prevent [side-effects], despite all our reassurances, and all our fiddlings and manipulations with the dosage[…]",
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        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 March 8, Howard Johnston, “Was Marples the real railway wrecker?”, in RAIL, number 978, pages 52–53:",
          "text": "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?",
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        {
          "text": "It was a fiddling little fault, but ultimately proved disastrous.",
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        "Of petty or trivial importance; footling"
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