From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishtwiddletwid‧dle /ˈtwɪdl/ verb 1 → twiddle your thumbs2 TURN[intransitive, transitive] to move or turn something around with your fingers many times, especially because you are nervous or boredtwiddle with She was twiddling with her earrings. —twiddle noun [countable]→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
twiddle• He was twiddling a piece of cork and sucking on his empty pipe.• He was twiddling his fingers and looking pleased with himself.• Till then, its quarry sat twiddling his thumbs and not quite smirking.• I sat there and twiddled my thumbs.• The rest of us could just sit and twiddle our thumbs and drink iced coffee.• The world got clearer, as if some one were twiddling the focus of her retinae.• He kept twiddling the knobs on the radio trying to get a signal.• Somehow it sounds even more so coming from a ballerina sitting in full-length black mink coat and twiddling with diamond earrings.• He looked away and began twiddling with the curtain cord.Origin twiddle (1500-1600) Probably copying the action 