hoddydoddy

noun

Etymology

From hoddy-dod, an obsolete English regionalism meaning “periwinkle” or “snail”. Compare dodman.

Definitions

  1. An awkward or foolish person.

    • Well, good wife bawd, Cob’s wife, and you / That make your husband such a hoddy-doddy ; / And you, young apple-squire, and old cuckold-maker
    • Name my accuſer ſaith he, or I defye thee Kemp at the quart ſtaffe. I told him, & all his anger turned to laughter: ſwearing it did him good to haue ill words of a hoddy doddy, a habber de hoy, a chicken, a ſquib, a ſquall: […]
  2. A snail

    A snail; a snail’s shell.

    • A River snail in Oxfordshire is “Hoddy-doddy”; in Northamptonshire the Wall snail is “Packman snail.”

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for hoddydoddy. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA