▪ I. noodle, n.1
(ˈnuːd(ə)l)
[Of obscure origin.]
a. A simpleton, a stupid or silly person.
| 1753 J. Hawkesworth Adventurer No. 25 ¶6 The words ninnyhammer, noodle, and numscull, are frequently bandied to and fro betwixt them. 1764 Foote Mayor of G. ii. Wks. 1799 I. 184 To take up at last with such a noodle as he! 1802 Sporting Mag. XX. 118 The Buck, who scorns the City Puts, And thinks all rich men noodles. 1826 Scott Woodst. iii, Thou wouldst..trip, like the noodles of Hogs-Norton, when the pigs play on the organ. 1875 Helps Soc. Press. viii. 113, I say he is a noodle if he has not previously determined how and when to leave off. |
b. slang. The head. cf. noddle n.1 2 b, 3.
| 1914 Jackson & Hellyer Vocab. Criminal Slang 62 Noodle.., the human head; brains; savoir faire; mentality. 1923 T. Fane What's wrong with Movies vi. 101 To the masses the cinema is only an entertainment, and using their noodles has long been classed..as one of life's hard labors. 1945 M. Trist in Coast to Coast 1944 207 Take no notice... She's off her noodle. |
Hence ˈnoodle v., to fool. rare—1.
| 1803 Censor 1 Feb. 23 To descend from my grammatical stilts in order to inform her that her mistress has completely noodled her! |
▪ II. noodle, n.2
[a. G. nudel, of uncertain etymology.]
A strip or ball of dough made with wheat, flour, and eggs, and served in a soup or other dish. Also attrib. in noodle-soup.
| 1779 Lady M. Coke Jrnl. Oct. (1892) III. 243 A noodle soup—this I begged to be explained and was told it was made only of veal with lumps of bread boiled in it. 1850 J. von Tautphœus Initials (1853) 139 That's the soup, and the Noodles will be all squashed if you work them up after that fashion. 1859 Bartlett Dict. Amer. (ed. 2), Noodles, dumplings or vermicelli. They are used in Pennsylvania, and are made by rolling into very thin sheets the dough, which differs from the Italian preparation by the addition of eggs. Ibid., Noodle-Soup. 1876 M. B. Edwards John & I, vii. 56 He had almost got reconciled to the frequent recurrence of sausage and noodle soup. |
▪ III. noodle, n.3 Jazz.
(ˈnuːd(ə)l)
[Origin unknown.]
A trill or improvisation on an instrument. Cf. noodle v.3 below.
| 1926 Whiteman & McBride Jazz x. 220 ‘Noodles’, that is, fancy figures in saxophone such as triple trills, often crowd out the melody. 1958 Jazz Review Nov. 25 My one complaint is that Monk here allows too many of his favourite piano ‘noodles’ (all pianists seem to have them). |
▪ IV. noodle, v.2 Austral.
(ˈnuːd(ə)l)
[Origin unknown.]
a. intr. and trans. To search for opals (in opal dumps or ‘mullock’). b. trans. To obtain (an opal) in this way. So ˈnoodling vbl. n.1
| 1902 Geol. Survey No. 177 (Queensland Dept. Mines) 20 Some splendid opal is found..by turning over and searching the old heaps and mullock—‘noodling’. 1931 M. S. Buchanan Prospecting for Opal in Austral. 10 Produced ten thousand pounds, with what was ‘noodled’ or picked up from the dumps. 1940 I. L. Idriess Lightning Ridge (1948) xiii. 79 Send the dirt up in the bucket where his mate..would carefully ‘noodle’ it, seeking tell-tale potch and colour. 1962 R. Webster Gems I. x. 191 The practice of picking over old mine dumps for overlooked opal is another form of ‘mining’. Such procedure is termed ‘noodling’. 1963 A. Lubbock Austral. Roundabout 79 Anyone can poke about..and ‘puddle’ or ‘noodle’ in the gravelly tailings of the mines. 1967 Sunday Mail Mag. (Brisbane) 8 Jan. 6/7 If you do the work by hand, sitting on the mullock heap like a shag on a rock, and patiently sift through the dirt, you are ‘noodling’. |
▪ V. noodle, v.3 orig. U.S.
(ˈnuːd(ə)l)
[f. the n.; cf. noodle n.3]
intr. To improvise or play casually on a musical instrument, esp. in jazz; to play an elaborate or decorative series of notes; also occas. trans. Freq. as ˈnoodling vbl. n.2 Also fig.
| 1937 Printers' Ink Monthly May 39/3 Noodling, the tuning up of musical instruments with practice runs, trills, scales, etc. 1941 Sun (Baltimore) 19 July 8/3 There is something rather exciting about the notion of ‘Old Man River’, already a folk song, being poured out by the whole choir of woodwinds, with the strings noodling away in the background like rolling waters. 1946 R. Blesh Shining Trumpets (1949) ix. 212 Shield's clarinet part..revolves in little runs around lead notes (this is called ‘noodling’). 1957 Nugget Dec. 5 Every time a jazz musician noodles a passable break these days he is followed by a show of bravura on an open Underwood fingered by a jazz writer. 1960 H. O. Brunn Story of Orig. Dixieland Jazz Band 164 Larry Shields will go down in history as the father of the ‘noodling’ style and possessor of one of the most powerful clarinet tones on record. 1966 Auden About House 44 In the half-dark, members of an avian orchestra Are already softly noodling, limbering up for An overture at sunrise. 1970 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 26 Sept. 27/2 Each piece [of writing] has the feel of jazz, the sense of building, of noodling around here, improvising there and finally resolving. |