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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. 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 ² British  

/ ˈdaɪdəʊ /

noun

1. an antic; prank; trick

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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

Etymology

Origin of dido

First recorded in 1800–10; origin uncertain

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 Ledyard, Addie

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.

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 Quiller-Couch, Arthur Thomas, Sir

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.

We'll go there together, Dave, and cut a dido.'

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

Her name wasn’t Dido but Elishat, transcribed by the ancient Greeks as Elissa.

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

Developer Dido Property Limited wants to build workshops, offices, 18 sound stages, cafes and parking spaces.

From BBC ● Nov. 27, 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

But Turk, a man, and Dido, a woman, received lesser sentences—twenty-nine lashes each—since their role in the plot was not fully proved.

From "In the Shadow of Liberty" by Kenneth C. Davis

Certain curmudgeons m these parts will hear with relief that Miss Lawrence has somewhat abated since her last didoes in New York.

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

Plainly the people wanted no economic didoes, no flagrant change in the status quo.

From Time Magazine Archive

Despite his misgivings about its didoes, he is fantastically proud of the city, and works 14 hours a day at his trying job.

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

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

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

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