fit as a fiddle

English

WOTD – 18 December 2017

Etymology

Unknown; possibly alliterative.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfɪt æz ə ˈfɪdl̩/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: fit as a fid‧dle

Adjective

fit as a fiddle (not comparable)

1. (simile, colloquial) Perfectly fit; in excellent condition or health.
   • 1598, [William Haughton], English-men for My Money: Or, a Pleasant Comedy, Called, A Woman will Haue Her Will‎^[1], London: Imprinted at London by W[illiam] White, dwelling in Cow-lane, published 1616, →OCLC:

     This is excellent ynfayth, as fit as a Fiddle: […]

   • 1915 September 3, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter 2, in Something New (Project Gutenberg; EBook #2042)‎^[2], New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, published 6 September 2008 (Project Gutenberg version), →OCLC:

     You wake up, feeling as fit as a fiddle; you look at the window and see the sun, and thank Heaven for a fine day.

   • 2008 April 10, Alexander Jung, Christoph Pauly, “Crashing the party of Icelandic prosperity”, in Spiegel Online‎^[3], archived from the original on 8 January 2015:

     Icelanders will assure you that their economy is really as fit as a fiddle, and it is true that the country does produce a tidy budget surplus.

Synonyms

• fit as a butcher's dog
• fit as a flea
• in fine fettle
• right as a trivet
• sound as a bell
• sound in wind and limb

Translations

perfectly fit

• Danish: frisk som en fisk, frisk som en havørn
• Dutch: fit als een hoentje, kiplekker (nl)
• Finnish: elämänsä kunnossa, terve kuin pukki
• French: frais comme un gardon (fr)
• Galician: estar en boa forma (literally “to be fit as a fiddle”)
• German: fit wie ein Turnschuh (de), kerngesund (de)
• Hebrew: בָּרִיא כַּשּׁוֹר m (barí kasshór, literally “healthy as a bull”)
• Hungarian: egészséges, mint a makk (hu), makkegészséges (hu)
• Icelandic: stálhraustur m, stálsleginn m, bráðhress m
• Italian: sano come un pesce m
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: frisk som en fisk

  Nynorsk: frisk som ein fisk

• Polish: zdrów jak ryba (pl) (literally “healthy as a fish”), zdrów jak koń (pl) (literally “healthy as a horse”)
• Russian: здоров, как бык (zdorov, kak byk, literally “healthy as a bull”)
• Serbo-Croatian: kao puška (literally “like a rifle”), zdrav kao dren (respective to health; literally “healthy as a dogwood”)
• Swedish: frisk som en nötkärna (sv)
• Volapük: lesaunik

References

• Colin McIntosh, editor (2013), “be (as) fit as a fiddle”, in Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 4th edition, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, retrieved 14 February 2017, reproduced in the Cambridge English Dictionary website, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Gary Martin (1997–) “As fit as a fiddle”, in The Phrase Finder, retrieved 14 February 2017.