Dictionary

hoddydoddy en · NOUN

Etymology

From hoddy-dod, an obsolete English regionalism meaning “periwinkle” or “snail”. Compare dodman.

Meanings

1. (obsolete) An awkward or foolish person.
   • Well, good wife bawd, Cob’s wife, and you / That make your husband such a hoddy-doddy; / And you, young apple-squire, and old cuckold-maker 1598, Ben Jonson, Every Man in His Humour, act IV, scene viii:
   • Name my accuſer ſaith he, or I defye thee Kemp at the quart ſtaffe. I told him, & all his anger turned to laughter: ſwearing it did him good to haue ill words of a hoddy doddy, a habber de hoy, a chicken, a ſquib, a ſquall: […] 1600, William Kempe, Kemps nine daies vvonder:
2. (England, obsolete) A snail or its shell.
   • A River snail in Oxfordshire is “Hoddy-doddy”; in Northamptonshire the Wall snail is “Packman snail.” 1899, W.T. Fernie, Animal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure, page 448:

Forms