play second fiddle

Meaning: (idiomatic,intransitive)To play asubsidiaryorsubordinateroleto someone or something else.1913, Ethel Carnie,Miss Nobody, page68:She had been mistress of the farm so long that it would be hard for her toplay second fiddle, but give her time and she'd be as good as new butter and as nice as ninepence, he said.2011December 15, Felicity Cloake, “How to cook the perfect nut roast”, inGuardian‎[1]:Christmas queen Mary Berry's aubergine five-nut roast, from her Christmas Collection, is, as the name suggests, rather more focused on the nut side of things. Breadcrumbsplay second fiddleto a medley of almonds, Brazils, chestnuts, pine nuts and pistachios which, although tangy with lemon juice and garlic, is outrageously dense. A single slice of this could leave you supine in front of the Queen's speech without even the wherewithal to reach for the remote control.

Examples:

EN: And I'm not going on to play second fiddle to any cheap English ham.
ES: Y no voy a hacer de telonero para ningún segundón inglés.
EN: "You've got to love him so abjectly "that you're glad to play second fiddle just to keep the music going for him."
ES: "Deberá quedarse a la sombra para que los focos solo le iluminen a él".
EN: It seems as though we'll have to play second fiddle to Herr Hitler.
ES: Tenemos un papel secundario frente a Hitler.
EN: You have to love him so abjectly that you'd gladly play second fiddle ..
ES: "Tendría usted que amarlo hasta el punto... "de quedarse en la sombra...
EN: I ask you, can such an artist as you play second fiddle in a Ziegfeld orchestra?
ES: Te pregunto, ¿puede un artista como tú tocar 2° violín en una orquesta Ziegfeld?
EN: So you're willing to play second fiddle to Young and Goodheart and the others when the chance to make a real discovery falls into our laps.
ES: Está dispuesto a ser segundón, detrás de Young y Goodheart y los demás cuando tenemos la oportunidad de hacer un verdadero descubrimiento.
EN: Can't play second fiddle anymore than you can.
ES: Ninguno de los dos quiere ser el segundo.
EN: I'm not gonna play second fiddle to that
ES: No seré menos importante que eso Estoy cansada de amagar
EN: - If you want to play second fiddle, don't expect me to back you.
ES: - ¿Quieres ser secundario? Allá tú, pero no esperes que te cubra.
EN: I don't know what you did in a past life that would warrant being born as my little brother. You've always had to play second fiddle to me.
ES: Naciste como mi hermano pequeño, y por eso no te han tratado muy bien.
EN: I won't play second fiddle.
ES: No soy plato de segunda mesa.
EN: The gendarmes cannot be expected to play second fiddle in this.
ES: La gendarmería no se conformará con operaciones secundarias.
EN: Right, men should play second fiddle.
ES: La mujer tiene que llevar los pantalones.
EN: The Tanaka zint not that he should play second fiddle.
ES: El Teniente Tanaka debería desempeñar un papel secundario.
EN: It's hard to play second fiddle to a cause.
ES: Es difícil quedar en segundo lugar ante una causa.

Note: the examples for non latin scripts have a high likelihood of mistakes, we do not own any of this data and it is sourced from Wiktionary, the NLLB database and Opensubtitles. Please help us improve this by contributing correct examples. We will be working to fix this issue over time however it is a bigger issue due to the the difficulties in dealing with non latin scripts and grammatical structures(non-romantic/european languages have lower resources as well ).