friemeln.
to fiddle; to move something in one's hands, especially by rubbing it between thumb and forefinger
Meaning & usage
to fiddle; to move something in one's hands, especially by rubbing it between thumb and forefinger
Er friemelte nervös an seinem Ohrläppchen.
Sie friemelt immer mit den herumliegenden Stoffresten.
to do delicate manual tasks, such as inserting a thread through the eye of a needle or undoing a tangle, implying either laboriousness of the task or clumsiness of them who do it
Ich musste ganz schön friemeln, um das auseinanderzukriegen.
Where this word comes from
20th century, from Low German and Central Franconian dialects. Cognate to Dutch friemelen (“to fiddle, fidget”). Probably the same as Dutch and Middle Dutch wriemelen (“to move back and forth”, intransitive and transitive), Low German wrimen (“to rub”), with a development from wr- to fr-, which is widespread among dialects of all the relevant languages. Philippa (Etymologisch Woordenboek, 2003-09) casts doubt on this because wriemelen also means “to swarm” (of a collective). This collective sense need not be the oldest, however. In fact, the first attestation has the sense “to move back and forth with exertion” (of a man during sexual intercourse), and the sense “to fiddle, fidget” is attested for the wr-form as well. Philippa prefers to derive friemelen from frommelen (“to fidget”) and this in turn from fommelen (German fummeln). However, frommelen shows variants with wr- as well and is also regionally more restricted.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.