doodle
Plural: doodles
Noun
- an aimless drawing
- A fool, a simpleton, a mindless person.
- A small mindless sketch, etc.
- The penis.
- Any crossbreed of a poodle with a different breed of dog.
Verb
Verb Forms: doodled, doodling, doodles
- To draw or scribble aimlessly, often while thinking.
- make a doodle; draw aimlessly
- To draw or scribble aimlessly.
- To engage in something non-seriously; fiddle.
- To drone like a bagpipe.
Examples
- The bored student doodled a submarine in his notebook.
- While waiting for her Words With Friends opponent, she would doodle elaborate patterns on her notepad.
Origin / Etymology
Originally dialectal, from Low German dudeldopp (“simpleton”). Influenced by dawdle. Compare also German dudeln (“to play (the bagpipe)”).
The word doodle first appeared in the early 17th century to mean a fool or simpleton. German variants of the etymon include Dudeltopf, Dudentopf, Dudenkopf, Dude and Dödel. American English dude may be a derivation of doodle.
The meaning "fool, simpleton" is intended in the song title "Yankee Doodle", originally sung by British colonial troops prior to the American Revolutionary War. This is also the origin of the early eighteenth century verb to doodle, meaning "to swindle or to make a fool of". The modern meaning emerged in the 1930s either from this meaning or from the verb "to dawdle", which since the seventeenth century has had the meaning of wasting time or being lazy.
Scrabble Score: 8
doodle: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Worddoodle: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
doodle: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary