▪ I. dodder, n.
(ˈdɒdə(r))
Also 3–6 doder.
[perh. Common WGer., though not known in OE., OS., or OHG. ME. doder = MLG. doder, dodder, MHG. toter, mod. Ger. dotter, Du. and Da. dodder, Sw. dodra. Similarity of form has suggested connexion with Ger. dotter, MHG. toter, OHG. totoro, tutaro, MDu. doder(e yolk of an egg, as if with reference to the colour of the flower-clusters of Cuscuta europæa; but this is a doubtful conjecture.]
1. The common name of the genus Cuscuta, family Convolvulaceæ, comprising slender leafless plants, like masses of twining threads, parasitic on flax, clover, thyme, furze, and other plants.
| c 1265 Voc. Plants in Wr.-Wülcker 557/11 Cuscute, doder. a 1387 Sinon. Barthol. 17 Cuscute, podagra lini, doder. c 1450 Alphita 154 Rasta lini..doder uel haynde. 1551 Turner Herbal i. H v b, Doder groweth out of herbes, and small bushes, as miscelto groweth out of trees. 1578 Lyte Dodoens iii. lviii. 398 Doder is a strange herbe without leaves and without roote, lyke unto a threed, muche gnarled and wrapped togither. 1640 Parkinson Theat. Bot. 11 Wee call those strings generally by the name of Dodder. 1871–2 H. Macmillan True Vine v. 227 The dodder..is a mere mass of elastic, pale red, knotted threads, which shoot out in all directions over the vine. |
2. Applied locally to some choking or climbing weeds: see quots.
| 1878 Cumbld. Gloss., Dodder..the corn spurrey plant, Spergula arvensis. 1884 Cheshire Gloss. s.v. Dother, In Mid-Ches. Polygonum Convolvulus is called dother. |
3. = dod n.2 dial.
| 1891 Rutland Gloss., Dodders, coarse reeds and rushes in swampy land. |
▪ II. † ˈdodder, a. Obs.
[f. dod v.1]
= dodded.
| 1614 Markham Cheap Husb. iii. i. (1623) 104 Let them have by no meanes any hornes, for the dodder Sheepe is the best breeder. 1868 [see dotterel 3]. |
▪ III. dodder, v.
(ˈdɒdə(r))
[A variant of or parallel formation to dadder, q.v. Cf. also totter.]
1. intr. To tremble or shake from frailty.
| 1617 Minsheu Ductor, Dodder grasses..so called because with the least puff or blast of wind it..doth as it were dodder and tremble. 1785 [E. Perronet] Occas. Verses, What is Life? 173 Where wisdom dodders, and where wanders peace. 1825 Brockett N.C. Words, Dodder, Dother, to shake, to tremble; to nod, as in the palsy of decrepitude. 1894 Cornh. Mag. Mar. 285 He doddered as he spoke. |
† 2. To nod (in sleep). Obs.
| 16.. Poem (N.) She dodders all day, While the little birds play; And at midnight she flutters her wings. |
3. To proceed or move unsteadily or with tottering gait; to totter; to potter.
| 1819 Miss Mitford in L'Estrange Life (1870) II. 58 One has such pleasure in doddering along the hedgerows. 1862 Sala Ship Chandler iii. 48 [He] was permitted to dodder about books and accounts of no great moment. 1885 Spectator 21 Nov. 1544 We must either set [one] up..once and for all, or dodder along for another half century with our miserable muddle. 1894 Mrs. H. Ward Marcella III. 201 Old Alresford, too, was fast doddering off the stage. |
Hence ˈdoddering ppl. a., that dodders; now freq. mentally feeble or inept; futile, footling; ˈdoddering-grass, quaking-grass (Britt. & Holl.); ˈdodderingness.
| 1745 W. Thompson Sickness iv. (R.), The sailor hugs thee to the doddering mast. 1871 M. E. Braddon Lovels xlii, A little old grey-headed man, who..had an ancient doddering manner. 1892 Northumbld. Gloss., Dodderin'-dicks, the quivering heads of the..quaking grass. 1908 Fabian News XIX. 82/2 Mr. Justin McCarthy, in his rather doddering introduction, explicitly warns us against Mr. Sheehy-Skeffington's portraiture of Davitt as an anti-clerical politician. 1915 Wodehouse Something Fresh iii, The amiable dodderingness which marked every branch of his life. 1921 G. B. Shaw Back to Methuselah iv. iii. 203 He was a doddering old ass. 1926 Brit. Weekly 23 Sept. 519/3 Your puir, toom, dodderin', fushionless kirk. |