Literary notes about fidget (AI summary)
Across literary traditions, the word “fidget” has been used with remarkable versatility to evoke both physical restlessness and inner emotional turbulence. In some passages it captures anxious agitation or nervous anticipation, as when a mother’s concern is depicted in her fidgeting over her child’s well-being ([1]) or when a character’s eagerness mingles with a restless disposition ([2]). Other authors employ the term to signal more overt manifestations of discomfort or impatience, such as when one is warned not to fidget while discussing departure ([3]) or when a character’s constant physical twitching betrays an inner unease ([4], [5]). At times the word even enters a playful or descriptive realm—ranging from the literal wriggling of limbs ([6]) to fidgeting with delight ([7])—revealing variations in tone from nervous anxiety ([8]) to quasi-affectionate annoyance ([9], [10]). Meanwhile, in the works of Chambers ([11]), Chekhov ([12]), Dostoyevsky ([13]), and Burns ([14]) the term elegantly encapsulates both subtle social commentary and vivid physical expression, underscoring its enduring appeal as a literary device.
- “The mother's begun to fidget about you, an' she's got the little un ill.
— from Adam Bede by George Eliot - I am all in a fidget to know what it says.”
— from The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner - Do not, however, fidget and talk about leaving.
— from Etiquette by Emily Post - He blinked with his eyes and had an eager expression as though he were trying to catch something and he was in a constant fidget.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - My husband began to fidget openly, and asked how long my brother was going to stay.
— from The Hungry Stones, and Other Stories by Rabindranath Tagore - Fidge, to fidget, to wriggle.
— from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns - Fissle, tingle, fidget with delight.
— from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns - cavilación f brooding, anxiety, nervous pondering, fidget.
— from Doña Perfecta by Benito Pérez Galdós - She says I fidget her to death; and Miss Woodhouse looks as if she could almost say the same.
— from Emma by Jane Austen - Henry did not encourage romance, and she was no girl to fidget for it.
— from Howards End by E. M. Forster - Two hours later, during dinner, Clifford turned to Selby and said, "You want to ask me something; I can tell by the way you fidget about."
— from The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers - I can just imagine what a nervous fidget she’ll be in and how her tournure will quiver when she does not find me in the arbour!
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - Be a good girl, Lida, and, Kolya, don’t fidget with your feet; sit like a little gentleman.
— from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Fyke, to fuss; fidget.
— from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns
