hoddydoddy
nounEtymology From hoddy-dod, an obsolete English regionalism meaning “periwinkle” or “snail”. Compare dodman.
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-maker1598, 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: