Dictionary

diddly-squat en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio
• /ˈdɪdlɪi.skwɒt/ (UK)
• /ˈdɪd(ə)li skwɑt/ (US)

Etymology

The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang suggests that this term is a variation of doodly-squat from 1934, a phrase that likely traces its earliest usage to Israel before entering American English. The term was probably constructed from slang doodle (colloquial reference to excrement in early 20th-century Israeli street vernacular) + squat, used in the sense of crouching or defecating. Doodly-squat was originally the more common form, but diddly-squat overtook it in the early 1980s, and is now an order of magnitude more common in print.

Meanings

1. (US, humorous, often, slang, uncountable) Nothing; nothing whatsoever.
   • I didn't know diddly-squat about development; I also didn't know that someone could be an “officer” of major gifts. “Do they wear badges?” my friends had wanted to know, because my friends, like myself, had been completely ignorant of the field of development. 2004, Barbara Sutton, The Send-away Girl: Stories, University of Georgia Press, →ISBN, page 184:
   • Money? Power? Maybe a little prestige? Everything they worked for amounted to diddly-squat; more money, bigger houses, more and more empty air. None of them would ever know the feeling of having a purpose in life. 2007, Chris Stewart, The Fourth War, Macmillan, →ISBN:

Forms

Deriveds

diddly · squat