How to Use fiddly in a Sentence

fiddly

adjective

• Put another way, some of us might get to live our lives with one less fiddly thing to worry about — and that’s not nothing.
  — Chris Velazco, Washington Post, 10 June 2022
• Two of the steps require the clumsy manipulation of those fiddly wing nuts and hinges.
  — Thomas Ricker, The Verge, 2 July 2019
• My first impression: close to greatness but just a tiny bit too fiddly and with one mechanism too many.
  — Nate Anderson, Ars Technica, 24 Nov. 2017
• The carmaker has learned to be more nimble; Cruise has picked up how to make its fiddly technology robust enough for the open road.
  — The Economist, 25 Jan. 2018
• Getting rid of those removable Joy-Cons—and the fiddly snap-on connection tying them to the main system housing—just makes the Switch Lite feel more solid in the hands.
  — Kyle Orland, Ars Technica, 19 Sep. 2019
• Three different seats are on offer: Our car had the midrange Sport Plus seats, which had plenty of lateral support, but the controls on the side of the console are somewhat fiddly.
  — Joe Lorio, Car and Driver, 4 July 2023
• The stubby stylus is far too short to use comfortably, while the micro SD card slot (a 4GB card is included) and the cartridge slot have been moved behind a fiddly plastic flap.
  — Mark Walton, Ars Technica, 27 June 2017
• Just like the piano keys, these small accessories are composed of lots of fiddly bits that are easily squashed or separated.
  — Andrew Webster, The Verge, 3 May 2018
• This dependable propane model heats up quickly, has reversible cast-iron grill grates (flip to the smaller side for small fiddly food like vegetables and shrimp), and is easy to assemble.
  — Lauren Joseph, Bon Appétit, 22 June 2021
• The game comes with lots of fiddly stats to keep track of, requiring players to shove plastic cubes around its board constantly as part of some not-very-interesting bookkeeping.
  — Owen Duffy, Ars Technica, 20 Jan. 2018
• Analysts gripe that Renault’s alliance is too fiddly to value.
  — The Economist, 22 Mar. 2018
• The only real complaints here are the fiddly controls for grabbing other players and the slow, between-round waits that hamper the frenetic nature of the mini-games themselves.
  — Ars Staff, Ars Technica, 22 Dec. 2020
• The public will never accept having to navigate a digital world by way of fiddly controls like a touchpad on the glasses themselves.
  — Tim Bajarin, Time, 12 Sep. 2017
• But linking the computers running such software to radios is often surprisingly fiddly in the age of painless USB and Bluetooth.
  — IEEE Spectrum, 19 Feb. 2016
• Apple has rightly resisted the temptation of building in fiddly touch controls.
  — Bloomberg News, The Denver Post, 20 Oct. 2019
• Preparing and maintaining qubits is a delicate and fiddly process, akin to classical computing in the days before silicon.
  — The Economist, 22 Feb. 2018
• Democrats nationally started shifting away from caucuses to primaries before 2020, citing the difficulty of attending an in-person meeting and the fiddly math involved to determine who wins the most delegates.
  — Michelle L. Price, Star Tribune, 11 June 2021

Last Updated: 22 Dec 2024