dido
noun
a mischievous trick; prank; antic.
dido
1 American
[dahy-doh]
/ ˈdaɪ doʊ /
noun
Informal.
-
didos,
plural
-
didoes
plural
-
a mischievous trick; prank; antic.
-
a bauble or trifle.
Dido
2
American
[dahy-doh]
/ ˈdaɪ doʊ /
noun
-
Phoenician Elissa. Classical Mythology. a queen of Carthage who killed herself when abandoned by Aeneas.
-
a female given name.
Dido
1
British
/ ˈdaɪdəʊ /
noun
dido
2
British
/ ˈdaɪdəʊ /
noun
Dido
Cultural
Discover More
Dido is an image of the unhappy or unrequited lover.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of dido
First recorded in 1800–10; origin uncertain
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:
That would be a pretty dido, I must say!
From The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna or, The Crew That Won by Gertrude W. Morrison
The Crocodile doth open his jaws, Like great big ugly tusky doors, And gobbles you up without a pause, Oh! fiddledy, diddledy, dido!
From Five Mice in a Mouse-trap by the Man in the Moon. by Addie Ledyard
We'll go there together, Dave, and cut a dido.'
From Menotah A Tale of the Riel Rebellion by Ernest G. Henham
When I seed him hangin' there I cut a dido and kep' screamin', 'Miss Gusta, he's a-dyin',' and them Fed'rals got plumb tickled at me.
From Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume XVI, Texas Narratives, Part 3 by United States. Work Projects Administration
The Buffalo doth proudly prance, Whenever the hunters will give him a chance, And over the prairies he leads them a dance, Oh! fiddledy, diddledy, dido!
From Five Mice in a Mouse-trap by the Man in the Moon. by Addie Ledyard
A senior lecturer at Cardiff University, Ms. MacDonald opens with the historical Dido, who seems to have been born in the ninth century B.C. in the city of Tyre, in present-day Lebanon.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 11, 2026
Dido Liu, one of the case managers, said in a brief interview that most of the newborns the company collected from hospitals were born during pandemic travel restrictions.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 28, 2025
Nora’s heroism, tentatively discovered only after she’s hit rock bottom, is in her refusal to follow in the self-destructive footsteps of Dido.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2024
His parents already had several cars, but wanted a separate one for Dido to travel in, to avoid the other cars getting messy, he explained.
From BBC ● May 13, 2024
Carthage had been founded by a woman, Dido, who was still its ruler and under whom it was growing into a great and splendid city.
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
Nevertheless, the committee could still be expected to cut didoes.
From Time Magazine Archive
Plainly the people wanted no economic didoes, no flagrant change in the status quo.
From Time Magazine Archive
A puerile play, relating the didoes in an Adirondack hunting lodge, when a gentleman crook poses to a house party as its owner and the real owner is arrested.
From Time Magazine Archive
Meat repeated the same didoes as of last July.
From Time Magazine Archive
Our youngest uncle, Billy, was not old enough to join in their didoes.
From "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou
As always, Arlene's personal didos were gay, frolicsome and deceptively casual.
From Time Magazine Archive
Sir Alan Patrick Herbert, the humorist who finds parliamentary didos far from funny, was angrily shouting and waving his arms to rally the Opposition benches.
From Time Magazine Archive
San Francisco suspected that the Southern Pacific's rate-cutting didos might have something to do with the road's scheme to sell its ferry franchise to the State Toll Bridge Authority for some $3,750,000.
From Time Magazine Archive
For such didos he won the somewhat dubious title of "The King of Glory."
From Time Magazine Archive
So I just stood there with monkeys, dollars, ponies, and .22s running around in my head, and waited while Grandpa cut all kinds of didos.
From "Summer of the Monkeys" by Wilson Rawls
Definitions 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.
