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:
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 Ledyard, Addie
That would be a pretty dido, I must say!
From The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna or, The Crew That Won by Morrison, Gertrude W.
Perhaps you don't think she means it when she goes to every 'tea' and 'recital' and 'at home' and crazy dido from here to Beersheba and back.
From Cap'n Dan's Daughter by Lincoln, Joseph Crosby
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 Henham, Ernest G.
We'll go there together, Dave, and cut a dido.'
From Menotah A Tale of the Riel Rebellion by Henham, Ernest G.
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
The top 10 also features hit debut albums by Dido, the Spice Girls, Alanis Morissette and Coldplay, while Ed Sheeran, Adele and Oasis are also on the full list.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2022
She also dug some of the chick stuff like Dido and Faith Hill and Coldplay, but her current favorites were definitely the White Stripes, which didn’t surprise me.
From "Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet" by Joanne Proulx
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
Even Frenchmen who are tolerant of governmental didoes were disgusted.
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
Old Johnson fans needed no explanation of such zany didos; Johnson was simply dramatizing his crusade against folks who eat popcorn In theaters.
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
For such didos he won the somewhat dubious title of "The King of Glory."
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
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.
