1580 T. Tusser Fiue Hundred Pointes Good Husbandrie (new ed.) f. 52^v If hops looke browne, go gather them downe. But not in the deaw, nor piddling with feaw.

1655 in C. H. Firth Clarke Papers (1899) III. 37 The French Ambassadour makes a pidling still.

1700 E. Ward Frolick to Horn-Fair 10 When I by the Manly Industry of my Hands and Jaws, and my Mistress, by her Effeminate Piddling and Picking, had both satisfied our Appetites, with our..Dinner.

1760 C. Johnstone Chrysal I. i. xiv. 102 This dissipated pidling soon gave way to the serious business of the evening.

1816 W. Scott Old Mortality xii, in Tales of my Landlord 1st Ser. II. 285 No piddling..but that steady and persevering exercise of the jaws which is best learned by early morning hours.

1922 L. Strachey Corr. with V. Woolf (1956) 98 Have you looked at the piddlings? And don't you think them vile? The horrid atmosphere of ‘luxe’ over them.

1990 Los Angeles Times (Nexis) 21 Jan. 77 The music was little more than another copy of the syrupy synth piddlings of Duran Duran.

1559 J. Aylmer Harborowe sig. Q2^v You haue the pidlyng Scottes, whiche are alwayes Frenche for their lyues.

1593 G. Harvey Pierces Supererogation 14 Pidlinge and driblinge Confuters, that sitt all day buzzing vpon a blunt point, or two.

1644 J. Milton Areopagitica 26 A wealthy man addicted to his pleasure and to his profits, finds Religion to be a traffick so entangl'd, and of so many piddling accounts, that of all mysteries he cannot skill to keep a stock going upon that trade.

1675 H. Prideaux Lett. (1875) 41 We have two or three small pidleing things printeing here.

1734 A. Pope Epist. to Arbuthnot 164 Yet ne'r one sprig of Laurel grac'd these ribalds, From slashing B—ley down to pidling T—ds.

a1774 A. Tucker Light of Nature Pursued (1777) III. iii. 87 The man of business has not time for such piddling work.

1827 W. Scott Chron. Canongate Introd. p. i For the piddling concern of a few shillings.

1866 A. L. Perry Elem. Polit. Econ. (1873) 524 The country is too large for the petty, piddling processes of ‘protection’.

1936 M. Mitchell Gone with the Wind lv. 949 He's just a piddling, do-less, good-for-nothing.

1996 Sunday Tel. 4 Feb. (Mag. section) 12/4 If the National Lottery can offer prizes of £18 million to £40 million..it is absurd that we're restricted to a piddling £250.

1968 Listener 2 May 579/3 Some may be inclined to poke fun by retitling Miss Meacock's book Piddling Girl, after counting the number of times the characters are glimpsed in lavatories.

1990 Today's Parent Feb. 37/3 A piddling pup, or a kitten running up your new sheers.