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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 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

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

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

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

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 Joseph Crosby Lincoln

"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

We can only guess how the Romans came to call her Dido; Ms. MacDonald supposes it was an epithet meaning “the wanderer.”

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

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

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

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

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

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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