noodle
1- a narrow strip of unleavened egg dough that has been rolled thin and dried, boiled, and served alone or in soups, casseroles, etc.; a ribbon-shaped pasta.
Origin of noodle
1noodle
2- Slang. the head.
- a fool or simpleton.
Origin of noodle
2noodle
3- to improvise a musical passage in a casual manner, especially as a warm-up exercise.
- Informal.
- to play; toy: to noodle with numbers as a hobby.
- to improvise, experiment, or think creatively: The writers noodled for a week and came up with a better idea for the ad campaign.
- Informal.
- to manipulate or tamper with: She denied that she had noodled the statistics to get a favorable result.
- to make or devise freely as an exercise or experiment (sometimes followed by up): The architects noodled up a model of a solar house.
- noodle around, Informal. to play, experiment, or improvise.
Origin of noodle
3Related Words for noodle
coconut, belfry, upstairs, skull, attic, crown, dome, cranium, brain, noggin, scalp, pate, poll, noddle, thinkerExamples from the Web for noodle
Contemporary Examples of noodle
Early arrival is essential unless you enjoy waiting 20 minutes for noodle soup.
“Feel my noodle,” he says as he lowers a forkful onto her face.
The question surrounding the noodle recedes, replaced by new ones: What makes a marriage?
Her belly is full, but the case of the noodle remains unsatisfyingly open.
But imagine if those kindergarten children began to insist that their noodle art was the absolute, perfect truth!
Historical Examples of noodle
Just you get it into your noodle that I mean to be quite free.
Helen, go after him—do anything—anything—to make the noodle understand.
Howards EndE. M. Forster
Put a noodle over him and that noodle's life will be a burden.
Ireland as It IsRobert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
He is a kind of softie—all alive on one side of his brain, and a noodle on the other.
Robert ElsmereMrs. Humphry Ward
Thought you had a noodle to deal with, didn't you, Mr. Philip Bawdrey?
Cleek, the Master DetectiveThomas W. Hanshew
noodle
1- (often plural) a ribbon-like strip of pasta: noodles are often served in soup or with a sauce
Word Origin for noodle
noodle
2- US and Canadian a slang word for head (def. 1)
- a simpleton
Word Origin for noodle
noodle
3- (intr) slang to improvise aimlessly on a musical instrument
Word Origin and History for noodle
"narrow strip of dried dough," 1779, from German Nudel, which is of unknown origin. West Flemish noedel and French nouille are German loan-words. The older noun meaning "simpleton, stupid person" (1753) probably is an unrelated word, as is the slang word for "head" (attested from 1914).
1937 (implied in noodling), from noun meaning "improvised music," 1926, probably from noodle (n.), on analogy of the suppleness of the food and that of the trills and improvised phrases in jazz improvisations. Related: Noodled.