Nautiterm: (Nautical Terms Explained) – “On The Fiddle”

Fiddle was the name given to the raised rim on a sailor’s square wooden plate. Not only did the fiddle keep food on the plate, it marked the limit as to how much of a helping a sailor was entitled to. If his helping touched or overlapped the fiddle, therefore ‘on the fiddle’, a sailor was said to be ‘fiddling’, depriving another sailor of his share of food, which was an offence punishable by flogging.