doodle
1 Americanverb (used with or without object)
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doodles,
present (3rd person singular)
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doodled,
past participle, past
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doodling
present participle
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to draw or scribble idly.
He doodled during the whole lecture.
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to waste (time) in aimless or foolish activity.
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Dialect. to deceive; cheat.
noun
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a design, figure, or the like, made by idle scribbling.
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Archaic. a foolish or silly person.
noun
verb
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to scribble or draw aimlessly
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to play or improvise idly
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to dawdle or waste time
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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doodlesimple
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doodlessimple
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have doodledperfect
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has doodledperfect
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am doodlingprogressive
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are doodlingprogressive
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is doodlingprogressive
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have been doodlingperfect progressive
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has been doodlingperfect progressive
Past
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doodledsimple
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had doodledperfect
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was doodlingprogressive
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were doodlingprogressive
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had been doodlingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of doodle1
1625–30 in archaic sense “a fool”; 1935–40 in current senses; compare Low German dudeltopf simpleton
Origin of doodle2
Probably extracted from cock-a-doodle-doo ( def. ); a euphemism for cock 3, to avoid association with cock 1, in sense “penis”
Explanation
A doodle is a casual little drawing you do, often while you're doing something else, like talking on the phone or listening to a teacher's lecture. Your history notebook might be equal parts notes and doodles. A doodle can vary from a meaningless scribble or scrawl to a detailed picture of a dog. You never draw a doodle for some specific purpose — to doodle is to draw in an aimless, haphazard way. In the 1600s, a doodle was a "simple fellow," from the German dudeltopf, "simpleton." It came to mean "foolish designs on paper" by the early 20th century.
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:
They found that in 82% of cases where one parent would display some problem behaviour, their doodle offspring were likely to show a more exaggerated version of that behaviour.
From BBC ● Mar. 18, 2026
At the bottom, one added a postscript—“Peut-être y a t’il autre chose en NZ”—along with a doodle, which has been endlessly parsed in the decades since.
From Slate ● Jul. 22, 2025
Only, oopsie doodle, due to a serious knock on the head, Samantha forgot that she’s actually a CIA-trained black-ops agent.
From Salon ● Dec. 7, 2024
A woman walked her dog, a doodle that knew how to heel.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 5, 2024
I doodle in history while Mr. Pape reviews points of view.
From "Saints and Misfits" by S.K. Ali
The enormous light-up can at the entrance features doodles of fireworks, a monster truck, and an eagle in American flag sunglasses.
From Slate ● Jun. 16, 2026
Jones suggests that, although the 80-page notebook suggests that "he starts off really trying hard", as you keep turning the pages Geisel's doodles "start to take up more and more of the notebook".
From BBC ● Mar. 2, 2026
All along he poured his inexhaustible love of tricky form into doodles he calls “ambigrams.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 21, 2025
And there are artists, who are upcharging bags adorned with mini doodles.
From Salon ● May 11, 2025
I picked up Zu’s notebook again in an attempt to avoid being lulled to sleep by Chubs’s rhythmic snores, and added a few clouds and stars to the first page of doodles.
From "The Darkest Minds" by Alexandra Bracken
In her teenage years, she doodled poems in her diaries and made up verses about physics to help her remember things for her exams.
From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2026
She developed, writes Ms. Lutz, a “weird, witchy” sense of humor, doodled violent images in the margins of her books and made a specialty, in her poetry and prose, of the “nocturnal and crepuscular.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
Stylist Bruce Ly was memorable in his playful, stumbling runway walk, his arms swinging in the oversized sleeves of his doodled Brett Westfall coat.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2025
And in “Decorator Malignin,” a bureaucrat doodled on the margins of documents during the endless, tedious meetings that made up his pointless working life.
From New York Times ● Jun. 2, 2023
I looked down at his hand and doodled aimlessly across his smooth, iridescent palm.
From "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer
He coped with frustration by doodling during meetings and began developing the Dilbert character.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 13, 2026
His campaign repeatedly put him in positions to reach strategic audiences, as campaigns do down the stretch, and he spent each session essentially doodling with crayons on the wall.
From Slate ● Oct. 19, 2024
He appeared more focused on doodling on a pad of paper than the news conference.
From BBC ● May 16, 2024
Armed with a Uniball pen and a Strathmore sketchpad, Mr. Polan chronicled the life of the city with an observational hunger that earned him the status of a doodling New York folk hero.
From New York Times ● May 3, 2024
“And,” she says, “all that doodling of yours, Ally. If you weren’t drawing all the time, your work might be done. Please put it away.”
From "Fish in a Tree" by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
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.
