doddard meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

doddard

noun

Etymology Possibly from dodder (“to shake or tremble as one moves, especially as of old age”) + -ard. The Scottish National Dictionary, a Scots dictionary, defining doddard as “A foolish old man, a dotard”, and providing an 1823 quotation, gives the etymology as either a variant of dotard, comparing Early Modern English dodart, or perhaps related to doddered, with spelling influenced by dotard.

A frail old man.

You are too old and too exacting to be satisfied with a blank page. You would certainly prefer one upon which life has written something. It is more interesting. Young girls are only for youths and for certain brainless doddards.1934, Sigurd Christiansen, translated by Isaac Anderson, “The Storm”, in Chaff Before the Wind, New York, N.Y.: Liveright Publishing Corporation, page 266:
President Roosevelt and the former King Edward collect stamps, along with thousands of others, ranging from six-year-olds to ninety-seven year old^([sic]) doddards.1937 March 25, B. C. Hagglund, “[Views and Reviews] The Collective Instinct”, in Tri-County Forum, volume V, number 51, Thief River Falls, Minn., page two, column 5:

4 more examples

Nelly. There are some people who enjoy Sunday. / Renny. Yes . . . the old doddards who listen to military bands in the public park.1939, Jean Sarment, translated by Frances Keene and Adrienne Foulke, “Rude Awakening”, in Eisig Silberschlag, Frederick Lehner, editors, Poet Lore: A Quarterly of World Literature, volume XLV, numbers 3–4, Boston, Mass., page 257:
Comments John Garth, critic of the San Francisco Argonaut: “When the young student leaves art school and starts his career as a producing artist, his utter contempt for those moss-backed old doddards, the Old Masters, is complete and vocal. After ten years of the heat of the struggle, he stands silent before the Old Masters and removes his hat.”1942 October 1, The Art Digest, volume XVII, number 1, New York, N.Y.: The Art Digest, Inc., page 6, column 3:
Secondly, the members of the Oporto Junta were no better than inept doddards, none of whom possessed any personal prestige.1947, Marcus Cheke, chapter XXVII, in Carlota Joaquina, Queen of Portugal, Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, published 1969, →ISBN, page 190:
The doctor is interested only in getting the three old doddards out of their ruts, and that is accomplished not by Freud but by cops and robbers, romance, and sentimental complications out of Scribe and Pinero.1955, W[ieder] David Sievers, Freud on Broadway: A History of Psychoanalysis and the American Drama, New York, N.Y.: Cooper Square Publishers, Inc., published 1970, →ISBN, page 57:

Related terms: dotard

doddard

noun

Rare A moribund or decayed tree.

[…] / Another ſhakes the Bed; diſſolving there, / Till knots upon his Gouty Joints appear, / And Chalk is in his crippled Fingers found; / Rots like a Doddard Oke, and piecemeal falls to the ground.1693, Aulus Persius Flaccus, John Dryden, transl., “[The Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus.] The Fifth Satyr”, in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English Verse. […] Together with the Satires of Aulus Persius Flaccus. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson […], →OCLC, page 63, lines 77–80:
Trees when lopped were dodded and became doddards.1955, Ivor Brown, Chosen Words, London: Jonathan Cape, […], page 179:

3 more examples

All the old pollards on the site should be maintained and any old, ill-formed or inaccessible individuals left to over-maturity. At present there is a dearth of older dying and decaying material. In areas being restocked, planting up close to these old doddards and pollards should be avoided.1985, Nicholas Smart, John Andrews, Birds and Broadleaves Handbook: A Guide to Further the Conservation of Birds in Broadleaved Woodland, Sandy, Beds: Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, →ISBN, page 114:
A famous survey of 1608 revealed 123,927 trees (197,405 loads) fit for the Navy and another 118,072 loads of ‘doddards’ (ancient decayed trees). The high proportion of ‘doddards’ shows the lack of replacement, caused by the grazing. From the outbreak of the Civil War many of these trees were being rapidly felled, whole woods being stripped of their oak. Even doddards were cut wholesale to provide ‘knees’ and ‘crooks’ used in ship frames.1987, Phil Colebourn, Bob Gibbons, Britain’s Natural Heritage: Reading Our Countryside’s Past, London: Book Club Associates, →OCLC, page 96, column 3:
From 1612, oak was felled in the forest for the navy yards at Deptford and Woolwich and from 1632 also for Portsmouth and other local yards. Felling for the navy continued for the remainder of the century and, periodically, during the 18th and into the 19th century. Besides oak, small amounts of beech and large numbers of ‘doddards’ (probably moribund oak, that provided big limbs, crooks and knees) were also taken.2001, Colin R. Tubbs, The New Forest: History, Ecology & Conservation, 2nd edition, Lyndhurst, Hants.: New Forest Ninth Centenary Trust, →ISBN, page 199: