Fiddle is an older word than violin – there were instruments called fiddles long before violins. Violino, which is Italian for “violin,” is the diminutive form of viola , which until the 1700s was the generic term for any bowed string instrument. The word viola itself came from the Old French viole , which came from the Provençal viula , which came from the Medieval Latin vidula . I used to think, as others did, that the word fiddle also came from vidula . Pronounce the V in vidula in the German