boodle
/ˈbuːdəl/
boodle noun: money, especially when acquired or spent illegally or improperly; swag.
Noun
boodle (countable and uncountable, plural boodles)
- Money, especially when acquired or spent illegally or improperly; swag.
- He was your 'man higher up' when you were on the force. His share of the boodle passed through your hands. You must go on the stand and testify against him.1907 April, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “According to Their Lights”, in The Trimmed Lamp […] , New York: McClure, Phillips & Co.
- “The boodle. The reward. The £500. The gunner turned damned nasty at the last, and I had to square him with an extra hundred dollars or it would have been nitsky for you and me.1917 September, Arthur Conan Doyle, “His Last Bow: An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes”, in His Last Bow: A Reminiscence of Sherlock Holmes, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran...
- Synonyms:
- dirty money, black money, ackers, bees and honey, blunt, bones, brass, bread, bread and honey, Bugs Bunny
- The whole collection or lot; caboodle.
- He pulled off his coat and threw it down, and declared he'd fight the whole boodle of 'em1833 January 4, Jack Downing, letter to Ephraim Downing
- Synonyms:
- kit and caboodle
- Candy and snacks.
- Send the first boodle in an airtight container so that there is a place for the storage of future packages […] Suggestions for Boodle: cookies, candy, individual packets of drink mixes (sugar-free), raisins, nuts, gum.1986, The Parent's Guidebook to West Point, page 62
Verb
boodle (third-person singular simple present boodles, present participle boodling, simple past and past participle boodled)
- To engage in bribery.
boodle meaning in Tamil and Bengali
boodle in Tamil
- முறையற்ற முறையில் செலவழித்தல்
boodle in Bengali
- অর্থ, টাকা, ঘুষ
Examples of boodle in a sentence
- […] marauders ready to decamp with whatever boodle they could in one fell swoop at a moment’s notice, your money or your life, leaving you there to point a moral, gagged and garotted.1922 February 2, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC:
- Rather than believe it, he goes crazy, falls in love with a marchioness, and gives his boodle gladly to a swindling genealogist who promises to establish that his delusions of nobility are justified.1966 September 22, Kurt Vonnegut, “The Fall of a Climber”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 4:
Synonyms of boodle
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of boodle
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | boodles |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | boodles |
| present participle | boodling |
| past participle | boodled |
| past | boodled |
Origin of boodle
From Dutch boedel. Doublet of bottle (dialectal term meaning building or house).
Words formed from boodle
Phrases with boodle
Words that rhyme with boodle
1 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about boodle
- What does boodle mean?
- Boodle means money, especially when acquired or spent illegally or improperly; swag.
- What is boodle in Tamil?
- Boodle in Tamil is முறையற்ற முறையில் செலவழித்தல். See Boodle meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use boodle in a sentence?
- […] marauders ready to decamp with whatever boodle they could in one fell swoop at a moment’s notice, your money or your life, leaving you there to point a moral, gagged and garotted.
- What part of speech is boodle?
- Boodle can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce boodle?
- Boodle is pronounced /ˈbuːdəl/.
- What is the plural of boodle?
- The plural of boodle is boodles.
Words near boodle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: boodle (page history and authors); boodle (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); boodle (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-boodle.wav.
Cite this entry: “boodle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/boodle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.