How to Use twiddle in a Sentence

twiddle

verb

• She twiddled her pen while she talked on the phone.
• She twiddled with her pen while she talked on the phone.
• Twiddle the knob on the telescope until things are in focus.
• Just twiddle the dial on the radio a bit for better reception.
• That's a long time to be sitting there twiddling your thumbs.
  — Evan Halper, latimes.com, 9 May 2017
• The agents sat in bars and cafés twiddling their thumbs over smartphones.
  — Karan Mahajan, The New Republic, 26 Mar. 2018
• What if the Suns make a big move, while the Warriors twiddle their thumbs?
  — Scott Ostler, San Francisco Chronicle, 9 Feb. 2022
• Rather than sitting around twiddling your thumbs find ways to be more productive.
  — Jeraldine Saunders, The Mercury News, 23 Mar. 2017
• The Eleven didn't twiddle their thumbs waiting around to open the scoring.
  — Kevin Johnson, Indianapolis Star, 14 Apr. 2018
• No sitting around twiddling thumbs, waiting on God-knows-what.
  — Breanna Edwards, The Root, 16 Aug. 2017
• No wonder Elon Musk has the time to twiddle his thumbs on Twitter.
  — Los Angeles Times, 27 May 2022
• Scroll on my phone, check if my passport is still there (for the 1,000th time), and twiddle my thumbs?
  — Cnt Editors, Condé Nast Traveler, 2 June 2026
• But at least some of them aren’t doing the genetic equivalent of twiddling their thumbs.
  — Quanta Magazine, 18 Aug. 2015
• However, that doesn't always mean waiting around and twiddling thumbs.
  — Tabitha Parent, PEOPLE, 29 Jan. 2026
• In today's world of smart phones, you'll never be left to twiddle your thumbs, so plan to arrive early and catch up on emails, etc.
  — Stewart Welch, AL.com, 1 Nov. 2017
• Daniel Ramos-Aviles, 42, put his head down and twiddled his fingers as the verdict was read.
  — Grethel Aguila, Miami Herald, 4 Sep. 2025
• There is a bee twiddling its legs on the moonlit dashboard of Bill Crawford’s pickup.
  — Krista Stevens, Longreads, 9 Aug. 2023
• Dallas Keuchel and Craig Kimbrel are waiting for teams to stop twiddling their thumbs.
  — Ben Cohen, WSJ, 6 Feb. 2019
• Players began twiddling the tips of their fingers in Yates’s direction, as if trying to cast a jinx.
  — Seth Berkman, New York Times, 28 June 2016
• Three conditioning treatments x three-minute soak each = nine minutes of twiddling your thumbs under the hot water.
  — Carina Hsieh, Cosmopolitan, 6 Mar. 2015
• Most were operated by someone twiddling joysticks at a safe distance.
  — The Economist, 20 June 2019
• But the scouts might spend some thumb-twiddling afternoons, as pitchers avoid throwing baseballs anywhere near Lewis.
  — Mark Whicker, Orange County Register, 5 Feb. 2017
• Trying to gather virtual friends in the game and have Nintendo-like fun felt largely like twiddling thumbs in a jail cell.
  — Sam MacHkovech, Ars Technica, 25 Jan. 2018
• Right about now, college sports fans are twiddling their thumbs and waiting anxiously for the start of football season just over 60 days away.
  — Rana Cash, The Courier-Journal, 26 June 2019
• The pipeline development analysts cannot afford to sit twiddling their thumbs.
  — Eric M. Stone, STAT, 5 June 2020
• For the second year in a row, Allen and other Chignik fishermen have mostly been left to twiddle their thumbs.
  — Alex Hager, Anchorage Daily News, 3 Aug. 2019
• Another friend had once spent more than a week twiddling his thumbs at a faraway location, waiting and waiting for an interview.
  — Stephen Galloway, HollywoodReporter, 18 Sep. 2025
• With all of those projects — and raising four children, with a fifth on the way — the Gaineses aren't exactly sitting around twiddling their thumbs.
  — Candace Braun Davison, House Beautiful, 25 Apr. 2018
• Mylan is a reminder that Allergan can’t twiddle its thumbs forever.
  — Washington Post, 9 May 2019
• Groundhog Audio claims its tech can match the tone from any song and drop it into a compact pedal at your feet – no knob twiddling necessary.
  — Abhimanyu Ghoshal, New Atlas, 20 Oct. 2025