Why Does Second Fiddle Mean Secondary Role?

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Why Does Second Fiddle Mean Secondary Role?

2 Answers

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Answer 1

The expression second fiddle comes from the music industry. The idiom is actually to play second fiddle. When a person plays second fiddle, it means that the person plays the role of a subordinate who is more important.

The word second fiddle is a person who serves in a subsidiary capacity. A person usually plays second fiddle to another person, especially to the one who is immediately superior to him. The phrase is believed to have originated sometime between the year 1825 and the year 1835.

Second Fiddle was also the name of a movie that revolves around the publicity schemes that took place in Hollywood. It released in the year 1939. It was directed by Sidney Lanfield. The movie Second Fiddle is a musical comedy which starred Tyrone Power as studio publicist Jimmy Sutton and Sonja Henie as Trudi Hovland, a skating teacher from the state of Minnesota in the United States of America.

Answer 2

The term second fiddle refers to an English idiom "playing second fiddle". Fiddle refers to musical instrument that belongs to the violin family of instruments. This idiom refers specifically to the second violin that is present in an orchestra. It is believed to be a far tougher instrument to be played then the first. As an idiom it refers to someone playing a secondary role to some one else. Just as it is the hardest part of the orchestra to play the second fiddle so in life nobody likes to play the second fiddle. The fact that the second fiddle is the hardest instrument to play was confirmed by the famous conductor Leonard Bernstein. An example of its use "No one likes playing second fiddle, all the credit went to Sara and Joan was not going to participate anymore".