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noodle

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English has three words spelled noodle: a fool or the head, a strip of pasta borrowed from German, and a verb meaning to improvise on a musical instrument.[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

  • US: /ˈnu.dəl/[4]

noodle1 simpleton, head

Etymology

The word for a fool is of uncertain origin.[3][5][6][7] It is perhaps ultimately a variant of noddle, the head,[3][1][2] and Johnson derived it from noddle or noddy.[8] Dictionary.com suggests noddle with the vowel of fool,[9] Collins a blend of noddle and the pasta word,[10] and Weekley a variation of noddy.[11] Etymonline treats the sense "head" as the older one, tracing it to nodel (“head, back of the head”) of the early 15th century, perhaps from Latin nōdulus (“small knot”), and takes "simpleton" as derived from it.[12] The regional forms noodles (Lincolnshire) and newdles, nudels (Cumberland) have the same meaning.[3][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

A stupid or silly person: 1720, in C. Shadwell's The Sham Prince.[3][14] Merriam-Webster gives the same year,[1] while Barnhart and Etymonline date it from 1753.[2][12]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) defined it as a fool or simpleton.[8] The slang sense "the head" is recorded by the OED from 1762, in Sterne's Tristram Shandy,[3] although Barnhart first finds it in 1914 in a vocabulary of criminal slang.[2] Green's dictionary quotes it from 1803.[15] From 1769 to 1836 the verb noodle meant to fool or dupe someone,[3][15] and in English regional speech it later meant to waste time (1854).[3] The word was in general dialect use in Scotland, England and America in the 19th century, for a simpleton, an awkward person or a trifler; in west Somerset it suggested silliness rather than dullness of mind.[13]

Timeline

  • 1720 – a fool, a simpleton.[3][1]
  • 1762 – slang, the head.[3]
  • 1769 – verb, to fool or dupe (obsolete by 1836).[3]
  • 1854 – verb, to fool around, waste time, in regional English.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (informal) A stupid or silly person; a simpleton.[1][10][3]
  2. (slang) The head, especially as the seat of thought: Use your noodle for once.[1][10][3]

Verb

  1. (obsolete, 1769–1836) To fool or dupe someone.[3][15]

Word family

  • noodledom
  • noodleism
  • noodly

noodle2 pasta strip

Etymology

The food is borrowed from German Nudel,[3][12][2][1][16] recorded in German from the 16th century and of uncertain origin.[3][2][6] The OED thinks it probably a variant of Knödel (“dumpling”), a diminutive of a variant of Knoten (“knot”),[3][16] which Etymonline relates to the Germanic source of knot.[12] Another proposal derives it from Ladin menùdli (“small piece of dough in soup”), from Latin minūtulus (“very small”), the diminutive of minūtus (“small”).[3][16][12] nouille and West Flemish noedel were borrowed from German too.[12][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A strip of pasta cooked in liquid: 1779, in the journal of Lady M. Coke.[3][1][2]

Semantic evolution

When the word was borrowed it could mean both a ribbon of pasta and a dumpling, according to the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, which supports the link with German Knödel.[17] The OED suggests the German sense developed from "swollen object" to "dumpling".[3] The noodle is now most strongly associated with Asian cooking, although the word came through German.[17] A verb noodle, to fatten geese by force-feeding them with rolls of a fattening mixture, comes from German nudeln.[1] In American slang a limp noodle is a flaccid penis, from the look of a cooked noodle (1975).[15]

Timeline

  • 1779 – a strip of pasta.[3][1]
  • 1975 – US slang, the penis.[15]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A long, thin strip of pasta or similar dough, often made with egg and cooked in water or soup; usually in the plural: a bowl of rice noodles.[1][10][16][3]

noodle3 improvise, play idly

Etymology

The verb meaning to improvise is of uncertain origin.[3][5] Merriam-Webster calls it imitative,[1] while Barnhart and Etymonline think it alludes to the pasta word, comparing the suppleness of noodles with the trills and runs of jazz players.[2][12] The OED suggests instead the German verb nudeln, recorded regionally in Leipzig by 1881 for playing or singing a piece in a low voice or as an improvisation, or the Shetland verb noodle, to hum (1897); later use was probably influenced by doodle.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A trill or improvisation on an instrument: 1926, in P. Whiteman and M. M. McBride's Jazz, describing fancy saxophone figures that crowd out the melody.[3][2] The verb follows in 1937, in the New York Times.[3][1][12]

Semantic evolution

The verb was first a jazz word, for playing or singing music in a tentative, playful or improvising way.[3][1] In American colloquial use from the 1940s it also meant to think in an aimless way or to fool around (1942), and to noodle out to work something out (1950), and to mull something over (1952).[3] Green's dictionary records noodle for thinking hard in 1945, in Minnesota campus slang, and derives it from noodle meaning the head.[15] Merriam-Webster also records the sense of working over a drawing until it loses its freshness.[1]

Timeline

  • 1926 – noun, a trill or improvisation.[3][2]
  • 1937 – verb, to play music in an improvising way.[3][1]
  • 1942 – to think aimlessly, to fool around.[3]
  • 1950 – noodle out, to work out.[3]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To play or sing music in a casual, improvised or aimless way: The guitarist noodled for a while before the show began.[1][10][18][3]
  2. (US, informal) To think about something in an aimless or playful way, or, with out, to work something out.[3][15]

Noun

  1. A trill or improvised passage on an instrument.[3][2]

Word family

  • noodling

Usage notes

Several minor words share the spelling: in Australia noodle means to search the waste heaps of an opal mine for opals (1902),[3][5] and in the American Midland to catch fish with the bare hands (1923), of unknown origin.[1][3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  10. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  13. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  14. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
  15. ^ a b c d e f g Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  16. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  17. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  18. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers