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• dido
  dido

  noun

  a mischievous trick; prank; antic.
• Dido
  Dido

  noun

  a queen of Carthage who killed herself when abandoned by Aeneas.

dido

¹ American  

[dahy-doh] / ˈdaɪ doʊ /

noun

Informal.

• didos,
  plural
• didoes
  plural

1. a mischievous trick; prank; antic.

2. a bauble or trifle.

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Dido ² American  

[dahy-doh] / ˈdaɪ doʊ /

noun

1. Phoenician Elissa. Classical Mythology. a queen of Carthage who killed herself when abandoned by Aeneas.

2. a female given name.

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dido ¹ British  

/ ˈdaɪdəʊ /

noun

1. an antic; prank; trick

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Dido ² British  

/ ˈdaɪdəʊ /

noun

1. classical myth a princess of Tyre who founded Carthage and became its queen. Virgil tells of her suicide when abandoned by her lover Aeneas

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Dido Cultural  

1. In Roman mythology, the founder and queen of Carthage in north Africa. She committed suicide in grief over the departure of her lover, the hero Aeneas.

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Discover More

Dido is an image of the unhappy or unrequited lover.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• didoes
  plural
• didos
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of dido

First recorded in 1800–10; origin uncertain

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

dido Dido didoes didos

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

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

"If the brute had cut up such a dido under your bed, you would have been as 'turnal sceared as I was."

From Life in the Clearings versus the Bush by Susanna Moodie

Three times that night she woke in the bed with her curl-papers crackling for very fright; and the fourth time 'twas at the sound of a real dido below stairs.

From News from the Duchy by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

I shouldn't have cut such an everlasting dido if he hadn't been monkeying around.

From Menotah A Tale of the Riel Rebellion by Ernest G. Henham

The story of the first Carthaginian queen, Dido, was co-opted by the Roman poet Virgil, whose hero, Aeneas, spurns her.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 11, 2026

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

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

There were a few players at Grampus Eight who spoke excellent English too, like our Dutch keeper Dido Havenaar, who was a lovely guy and became a good friend.

From BBC ● May 11, 2023

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

Even Frenchmen who are tolerant of governmental didoes were disgusted.

From Time Magazine Archive

Meat repeated the same didoes as of last July.

From Time Magazine Archive

Oldsters worried at first that the children would indulge in more didoes than devotions, but they were soon impressed.

From Time Magazine Archive

Nevertheless, the committee could still be expected to cut didoes.

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

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

Fibber's garrulous tarradiddles, the broguish comeuppances Molly metes out to him, the dated didos of his numerous stooges, are as familiar as the pattern of the living-room rug.

From Time Magazine Archive

For such didos he won the somewhat dubious title of "The King of Glory."

From Time Magazine Archive

As always, Arlene's personal didos were gay, frolicsome and deceptively casual.

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

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