noddy
Americannoun
-
noddies
plural
-
any of several dark-bodied terns of the genera Anous and Micranous found about the coasts and islands in warm seas of both the New and Old Worlds, often so tame as to seem stupid.
-
a fool or simpleton; noodle.
noun
-
any of several tropical terns of the genus Anous, esp A. stolidus ( common noddy ), typically having a dark plumage
-
a fool or dunce
noun
adjective
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of noddy
1520–30; perhaps noun use of obsolete noddy (adj.) silly. See nod, -y 1
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.
See Examples For:
He captured this lesser noddy caught in a collosal spider's net on the Seychelles island.
From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2013
We saw bonito tuna in schools jumping while noddy terns dove into the water.
From New York Times ● Sep. 23, 2011
"Beshrew me! a noddy it must have been," gurgled Mohi through his pipe-stem, "to lay golden eggs for others to hatch."
From Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II by Herman Melville
A very similar game called “Noddy” was formerly played, the game being fifteen or twenty-one up, marked with counters, occasionally by means of a noddy board.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 6 "Coucy-le-Château" to "Crocodile" by Various
And stomachs go empty, and brains slowly soften, And sense sick with dizziness, All in the name of the bosh men embody In one clap-trap phrase that dupes many a noddy, That—business is business!
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 99, December 13, 1890 by Various
But a staff investigation reportedly found that no fake "noddies" had ever been broadcast.
From BBC ● May 25, 2025
And if vegetation was restored to three quarters of these islands' surface area then that could lead to more than 280,000 breeding pairs of lesser noddies, sooty terns and red-footed boobies.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 18, 2024
Their modelling shows that if rats were removed from these 25 islands that could result in populations of lesser noddies, sooty terns and red-footed boobies recovering to nearly 24,000 breeding pairs -- an 18-fold increase.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 18, 2024
There are also nesting colonies of roughly 100,000 sooty terns, smaller groups of great frigatebirds, black and brown noddies, white terns, and tropicbirds.
From Science Magazine ● Aug. 27, 2020
Others do their fishing seated on the water; for there are many different kinds of water-fowl here represented—gulls, shags, cormorants, gannets, noddies, and petrels, with several species of Anativae, among them the beautiful black-necked swan.
From The Land of Fire A Tale of Adventure by Mayne Reid
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
