noodle
1 Americannoun
noun
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Slang.
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the head.
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the mind.
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a fool or simpleton.
verb (used without object)
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to improvise a musical passage in a casual manner, especially as a warm-up exercise.
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Informal.
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to play; toy.
to noodle with numbers as a hobby.
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to improvise, experiment, or think creatively.
The writers noodled for a week and came up with a better idea for the ad campaign.
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verb (used with object)
verb phrase
verb (used with or without object)
noun
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a slang word for head
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a simpleton
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of noodle1
First recorded in 1770–80; from German Nudel
Origin of noodle2
First recorded in 1745–55; perhaps variant of noddle (with oo from fool 1 )
Origin of noodle3
An Americanism dating back to 1935–40; origin uncertain
Origin of noodle4
First recorded in 1920–25; origin unknown
Explanation
A noodle is a piece of pasta, especially a long, skinny one. You can eat noodles with butter and cheese or sauce, or slurp them from a bowl of soup. Noodles are cut or rolled from a dough that contains some kind of flour — wheat, buckwheat, and rice flour are all commonly used. In Thai food, you'll find wide and thin rice noodles, while Italian food contains many varieties of noodles made from semolina flour, like spaghetti and lasagna. Informally, you can call your head a noodle too. Both meanings have uncertain origins; all we know for sure is that noodle comes from the German Nudel.
Vocabulary lists containing noodle
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:
"We're worried," said Samuel Fu, who works in a noodle shop in the coastal district of Bali, in New Taipei City.
From Barron's ● Jul. 10, 2026
The beef noodle soup, which accounts for about 80% of orders, contains noodles, beef, one ladle of original stock and one ladle of fresh broth to dilute the stock’s intense flavor.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 30, 2026
On stage, there is a camaraderie between the musicians, who interact playfully with their frontman, twirling him around the stage, or parting ways to let him noodle around on a vintage synthesiser.
From BBC ● Jun. 13, 2026
They recommend making a simple chicken salad, which can be enjoyed on its own or in a sandwich, along with fajitas, pot pie, buffalo chicken dip, empanadas and chicken noodle soup.
From Salon ● May 30, 2026
Mamou had made ash-e reshteh, which is a sort of Persian noodle soup.
From "Darius the Great Is Not Okay" by Adib Khorram
A lawyer by training, he seems to function primarily by breaking any challenge into small pieces to be noodled over at tedious length one by one.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 5, 2026
The boy noodled with seashells as his grandfather cast.
From New York Times ● Jul. 7, 2023
His first great muse, a Weimaraner called Man Ray, noodled around in front of the camera until Wegman decided to click the shutter.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 5, 2019
At first our voices wavered, our raised arms noodled, and our overall mien lacked sternness.
From Slate ● Apr. 21, 2016
She noodled at me, I noodled back at her, and her eyes crinkled charmingly whenever I managed a smidge of tuneful wit.
From Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Doctorow, Cory
Overcoming the aerodynamic drag inherent with a trad-core design was a degree-of-difficulty multiplier for Rivian’s team, requiring lots of computer simulation and iterative, millimeter-scale noodling.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 27, 2026
They hang out — George with a ukulele in his hands, noodling away — and talk old times.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 26, 2025
“Tomorrow,” after intermission, contained 24 blissful minutes of bass, percussion, flute, guitar and vocal noodling over a recorded soundscape of environmental noise.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 15, 2024
Purportedly about a dismal romantic engagement with John Mayer, it is produced in the style of Mayer, dressed liberally with blues guitar noodling.
From New York Times ● Jul. 4, 2023
Kyle could tell they were already noodling out numbers.
From "Mr. Lemoncello's Library Olympics" by Chris Grabenstein
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.
