hoddydoddy

English

Etymology

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

Noun

hoddydoddy (plural hoddydoddies)

1. (obsolete) An awkward or foolish person.
   • 1598, Ben Jonson, Every Man in His Humour, act IV, scene viii:

     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

   • 1600, William Kempe, Kemps nine daies vvonder:

     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: […]

2. (obsolete, England) A snail; a snail’s shell.
   • 1899, W.T. Fernie, Animal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure, page 448:

     A River snail in Oxfordshire is “Hoddy-doddy”; in Northamptonshire the Wall snail is “Packman snail.”

References

• “Hoddydoddy”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “hoddy-doddy”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.