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doodle.

A fool, a simpleton, a mindless person.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈduːdl̩/Received-Pronunciation/ˈdud(ə)l/General-American
  1. A fool, a simpleton, a mindless person.

    obsolete
  2. A small mindless sketch, etc.

  3. The penis.

    childish · slang · sometimes
Where this word comes from

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.

verb/ˈduːdl̩/Received-Pronunciation/ˈdud(ə)l/General-American
  1. To draw or scribble aimlessly.

    ambitransitive
    The bored student doodled a submarine in his notebook.
  2. To engage in something non-seriously; fiddle.

    intransitive
  3. To drone like a bagpipe.

    Scotland
Where this word comes from

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.

noun/ˈduːdl̩/Received-Pronunciation/ˈdud(ə)l/General-American
  1. Any crossbreed of a poodle with a different breed of dog.

Where this word comes from

Extracted from Labradoodle, itself a blend of labrador and poodle

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.