Waldo
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of waldo
C20: named after Waldo F. Jones, inventor in a science-fiction story by Robert Heinlein
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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When most people think of the foundational figures in American environmentalism, they likely conjure up such wistful white Transcendentalists as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Louisa May Alcott.
From Salon ● Jun. 19, 2026
Ralph Waldo Emerson declared that Brown would “make the gallows as glorious as the cross.”
From Slate ● Apr. 2, 2026
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s standards of literary criticism, like his philosophy, are focused on realism, felt experience and humanity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 24, 2026
Noonan also won Sundance’s Waldo Salt screenwriting award for the script.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 18, 2026
In their afternoons in the hospital, Pollard wooed her with quotes from Old Waldo while she tended to his leg.
From "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand
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The arms and hands were of the waldo type used to handle radioactive materials in a hot lab—four jointed fingers and an opposed thumb, metal duplicates of the human hand.
From Unwise Child by Randall Garrett
Snookums’ waldo fingers wrinkled the pages that way.
From Unwise Child by Randall Garrett
And the evidence shows that a pair of waldo hands smashed those switches.
From Unwise Child by Randall Garrett
Commute by rocket—or better yet stay home and do all your business by TV-telephone, or by waldo if it were that sort of thing.
From The Creature from Cleveland Depths by Fritz Leiber
See also bar, baz, qux, quux, corge, grault, garply, waldo, fred, plugh, xyzzy, thud.
From The Jargon File, Version 4.2.2, 20 Aug 2000 by Guy L. Steele
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