noddy

American  

[nod-ee] / ˈnɒd i /

noun

• noddies
  plural

1. any of several dark-bodied terns of the genera Anous and Micranous found about the coasts and islands in warm seas of both the New and Old Worlds, often so tame as to seem stupid.

2. a fool or simpleton; noodle.

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noddy ¹ British  

/ ˈnɒdɪ /

noun

1. any of several tropical terns of the genus Anous, esp A. stolidus ( common noddy ), typically having a dark plumage

2. a fool or dunce

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noddy ² British  

/ ˈnɒdɪ /

noun

1. (usually plural) television film footage of an interviewer's reactions to comments made by an interviewee, used in editing the interview after it has been recorded

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noddy ³ British  

/ ˈnɒdɪ /

adjective

1. informal very easy to use or understand; simplistic

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• noddies
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of noddy

1520–30; perhaps noun use of obsolete noddy (adj.) silly. See nod, -y ¹

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

noddy noddies

He captured this lesser noddy caught in a collosal spider's net on the Seychelles island.

From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2013

We saw bonito tuna in schools jumping while noddy terns dove into the water.

From New York Times ● Sep. 23, 2011

The rock was covered with birds—my old friends, the booby and the noddy, I had so often read about.

From A Voyage round the World A book for boys by William Henry Giles Kingston

Innumerable birds of a noddy kind made this island their resting-place; so that we had reason to flatter ourselves with hopes of getting supplies in greater abundance than it had hitherto been in our power.

From A Voyage to the South Sea For The Purpose Of Conveying The Bread-Fruit Tree To The West Indies, Including An Account Of The Mutiny On Board The Ship by William Bligh

But Neptune bawled out—"Why Jove you're a noddy, "Is Britain sufficient to poise that vast body?

From The Poems of Philip Freneau, Volume II (of III) by Philip Freneau

But a staff investigation reportedly found that no fake "noddies" had ever been broadcast.

From BBC ● May 25, 2025

And if vegetation was restored to three quarters of these islands' surface area then that could lead to more than 280,000 breeding pairs of lesser noddies, sooty terns and red-footed boobies.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 18, 2024

Their modelling shows that if rats were removed from these 25 islands that could result in populations of lesser noddies, sooty terns and red-footed boobies recovering to nearly 24,000 breeding pairs -- an 18-fold increase.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 18, 2024

There are also nesting colonies of roughly 100,000 sooty terns, smaller groups of great frigatebirds, black and brown noddies, white terns, and tropicbirds.

From Science Magazine ● Aug. 27, 2020

In the afternoon we had many birds about us, which are never seen far from land, such as boobies and noddies.'

From The Eventful History of the Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause and Consequences by Sir John Barrow

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