Diddle

Diddle in the sense of to cheat or swindle dates from the early 19th century and derives from Jimmy Diddler, a fictional swindler in the popular farce Raising the Wind (1803) by James Kenney. (Diddle meaning to jerk from side to side is an earlier, now largely archaic word from the early 1600s, but has no etymological connection to the foregoing.)