tiddler
/ˈtɪdlə
/noun British informal
1A small fish, especially a stickleback or minnow.Whilst Maggi and I each took good sized quality fish on each strike, each time Martin's turn on the rods came around, every fish was a tiddler of 10 or 15 lb!...
- I watched TV fishing ‘celebs’ catch everything from tiddlers to Tarpon.
- So if the big fish are lost, there tends to be an explosion in the numbers of tiddlers, this not only stops any big fish from coming through, but also leads to increased predation on the prey fish.
1.1A young or unusually small person or thing: she was only a little tiddler, ten years old...
- Jo Haywood discovers that buying clothes for tiddlers, toddlers, tweenies and teens is child's play this season.
- It was huge - not like the wild tiddlers we have at home.
- This tiddler, this minnow of the money market should obviously be allowed to get bigger and swallow something bigger.
Origin
Late 19th century: perhaps related to tiddly2 or tittlebat, a childish form of stickleback.