Word.ws English Dictionary

noodle

Syllables: nood·leUK[ˈnuː.dl̩]/ˈnu.dəl/

noodle noun: a string or flat strip of pasta or other dough, usually cooked (at least initially) by boiling, and served in soup or in a dry form mixed with a sauce and other ingredients. Also the ellipsis of pool noodle.

noodle: a string or flat strip of pasta or other dough, usually cooked (at least initially) by boiling, and...
Image: Tiia Monto, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

noodle (plural noodles)

  1. (plural-normally) A string or flat strip of pasta or other dough, usually cooked (at least initially) by boiling, and served in soup or in a dry form mixed with a sauce and other ingredients.
    • She slurped a long noodle up out of her soup.
    • She is cooking noodles for dinner.
  2. (broadly) An object which is long and thin like a noodle (sense 1).
  3. (archaic) A dumpling cooked by boiling and served in soup; a knaidel or knödel.
  4. (slang) The penis.
  5. (slang) A long and slender dragon, usually an eastern dragon.
  6. (Internet, endearing, humorous) A borzoi dog.

Noun (2)

noodle (plural noodles)

  1. (dated, informal) A person with poor judgment; a fool.
    • Laura told me the names of all the actors and actreſſes as they preſented themſelves; and, not contented vvith this, the ſatyrical baggage deſcrib'd their characters nicely, as they appeared. "This here (ſaid ſhe) is a noodle—That fellovv is a brute:[…]."1751, [Alain-René Lesage], “Which is as Short as the Foregoing”, in [Tobias George Smollett], transl., The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane. […], 3rd edition, volume I, London: […] J. Osborn...
    • You vvrong me, noodle (boxes his ears). Novv then to the point.1796 March 25 (first performance), J[ames] C. Cross, “The Village Doctor, a Burletta. […]”, in Parnassian Bagatelles: Being a Miscellaneous Collection of Poetical Attempts. […], London: […] Burton...
  2. (informal, slang) The brain; the head.
    • [W]hat appears to at first glance to be a thinking problem can be a problem with sight or hearing. […] There's nothing wrong with your noodle; it's your sensory equipment that needs a bit of help. Learn to compensate.2006, Mark Victor Hansen, Art Linkletter, “Mind or Are You ‘Sageing’ or Aging?”, in How to Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life, Nashville, Tenn.: Nelson Books, Thomas Nelson, →ISBN, page...

Verb (1)

noodle (third-person singular simple present noodles, present participle noodling, simple past and past participle noodled)

  1. (informal, obsolete, transitive) To fool or trick (someone).
    Synonyms:
    dupe
  2. (UK, dialectal, informal, intransitive) To engage in frivolous behavior; to fool around or waste time.

Verb (2)

noodle (third-person singular simple present noodles, present participle noodling, simple past and past participle noodled)

  1. (Shetland, ambitransitive, informal, singing) To hum or sing (a tune) at a low pitch or volume.

Verb (3)

noodle (third-person singular simple present noodles, present participle noodling, simple past and past participle noodled)

  1. (informal, transitive, chiefly jazz) To play (a musical instrument or passage of music) or to sing (a passage of music) in an improvisatory or lighthearted manner; also, to play (a series of ornamental notes) on an instrument.
  2. (US, informal, transitive) To ponder or think about (something).
    • “Noodle that thought around for a while,” said Dr. Johnson to his Biblical Interpretations class.
    Synonyms:
    mull over
  3. (informal, intransitive, chiefly jazz) To play a musical instrument or to sing in an improvisatory or lighthearted manner; also, to play a series of ornamental notes on an instrument.
    • He has been noodling with that trumpet all afternoon, and every bit of it sounds awful.
    • [A]udible here and there / in the half-dark, members of an avian orchestra / are already softly noodling, limbering up for / an overture at sunrise, […]1965, W[ystan] H[ugh] Auden, “Thanksgiving for a Habitat. The Cave of Nakedness (for Louis and Emmie Kronenberger).”, in About the House, New York, N.Y.; Toronto, Ont.: Random House, →OCLC, page 34
  4. (US, informal, intransitive) To ponder or think, especially in an unproductive or unsystematic manner; to muse.
    • He noodled over the problem for a day or two before making a decision.
  5. (US, informal, intransitive) To attempt in an informal or uncertain manner; to fiddle.
    • If the machine is really broken, noodling with the knobs is not going to fix it.
  6. (US, informal, intransitive) Often followed by about or around: to mess around, to play.

Noun (3)

noodle (plural noodles)

  1. (informal, chiefly jazz) An improvised passage of music played on an instrument; also, a series of ornamental notes played on an instrument; a trill.

Verb (4)

noodle (third-person singular simple present noodles, present participle noodling, simple past and past participle noodled)

  1. (Australia, informal, transitive) To search (mullock (“mining or ore processing waste”)) for opals.
  2. (Australia, informal, transitive) To obtain (an opal) by searching through mullock.
  3. (Australia, also, figuratively, informal, transitive) To clear extraneous material from (an opal).
  4. (Australia, informal, intransitive) To search mullock for opals; to fossick.
    • On the Olympic Field the tour-group is permitted to ‘noodle’ (hunt for opals) on the waste or mullock heaps […]1989, Association for Industrial Archaeology, Industrial archaeology review, volume 12
    • In Coober Pedy, noodling for opals is generally discouraged, although a few tourist spots, such as the Old Timers Mine, have noodle pits open to the public.1994, RonMoon, Outback Australia: a Lonely Planet Australia guide

Verb (5)

noodle (third-person singular simple present noodles, present participle noodling, simple past and past participle noodled)

  1. (Australia, informal, transitive) To catch (fish (usually very large catfish), turtles, or other aquatic animals) with the hands; also, to catch (fish) using a gaff or fishing spear; to gaff.
    • Fred had several lacerations on his hands from noodling flathead in the river.
    Synonyms:
    guddle, catfist

Also used as

noodle is also the ellipsis of pool noodle.

noodle meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

noodle in Hindi

string or flat strip of pasta or other dough
नूडल nūḍal, नूडल्स nūḍals

noodle in Tamil

string or flat strip of pasta or other dough
நூலடை nūlaṭai

noodle in Marathi

string or flat strip of pasta or other dough
नूडल nūḍal

noodle in Urdu

string or flat strip of pasta or other dough
نوڈل nūḍal
More languagesFewer languages
noodle in Bengali
নুডল nuḍol
noodle in Telugu
నూడిల్
noodle in Kannada
ನೂಡಲ್
noodle in Gujarati
નૂડલ
noodle in Odia
ନୁଡୁଲ୍
noodle in Nepali
नुडल
noodle in Pashto
مکروني
noodle in Tagalog
luglog
noodle in Arabic
نُودَلْز nūdalz, شَعْرِيَّة šaʕriyya
noodle in Malay
mi
noodle in Indonesian
mi, mie
noodle in Persian
نودل nudel, اگرا ogrâ, رشته rešte, لخشک laxšak
noodle in Thai
บะหมี่ bà-mìi, ก๋วยเตี๋ยว gǔai-dtǐao, หมี่ mìi
noodle in Vietnamese
bánh, bún, mì dẹt, miến
noodle in Myanmar
ခေါက်ဆွဲ hkaukhcwai:
Dzongkha
རྒྱ་ཐུག

Examples of noodle in a sentence

  • He settled for the noodles and then after watching The Jungle Book twice on video it was time for beddy-bys.1995, Paul Vautin, Turn It Up!, Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia, page 148:
  • One brought two boxes of instant mami noodles.2003, Ma. Romina M. Gonzalez, Welostit and Other Stories, page 51:
  • [T]hou would'st fling thy cuckoldy steeple-hat one way, and that bloodthirsty long-sword another, and trip like the noodles of Hogs-Norton, when the pigs play on the organ.1826, [Walter Scott], chapter III, in Woodstock; Or, The Cavalier. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald...
  • If that portrait could speak, sir,— […] it would testify, that a long period has elapsed since I first habitually addressed it as the picture of a Noodle.1854, Charles Dickens, “Final”, in Hard Times. For These Times, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], →OCLC, 3rd book (Garnering), page 349:

All 40 example sentences with noodle

Synonyms of noodle

Forms of noodle

Noun
pluralnoodles
Verb
third-person singular presentnoodles
present participlenoodling
past participlenoodled
pastnoodled

Plural of noodle: noodles

Origin of noodle

Borrowed from Dutch noedel (“noodle”), or from its etymon German Nudel (“piece of pasta, noodle”); further etymology uncertain, probably a variant of Knödel (“dumpling”), from Middle High German knödel (“dumpling; small knot”), and then either: * from knode, knote (“knot”) (from Old High German knodo, knoto (“knot”), perhaps ultimately related to Proto-West Germanic *knappō (“knob; boy”)) + -el (diminutive suffix); or * from Ladin menùdli (“small dough dumpling in soup”), probably from Latin minutulus (“very small, tiny”) (in the sense of food chopped into small pieces), a diminutive of minūtus (“diminished; having been diminished”), the perfect passive participle of minuō (“to make smaller, diminish, lessen, reduce”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *mey- (“little, small”). Cognates * French nouille, noudle, nudeln * Swedish nudel

The origin of the noun is uncertain; it is possibly a variant of noddle (“the head”). The verb is derived from the noun.

Possibly either: * a blend of Shetland Scots nune (“to sing softly, croon, hum”) (from Danish nynne, Norwegian nuna, nynna (“to hum; to sing”), originally imitative) + English doodle (“to play the bagpipes”) (chiefly Scotland); or * from Norn (unattested), from Old Norse *grynta, from Proto-Germanic *grunnatjaną (“to grunt”), a frequentative of Proto-Germanic *grunnōną (“to grunt”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrun- (“to shout”) (and thus a doublet of grunt).

Words formed from noodle

Phrases with noodle

Words that rhyme with noodle

1 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about noodle

What does noodle mean?
Noodle means a string or flat strip of pasta or other dough, usually cooked (at least initially) by boiling, and served in soup or in a dry form mixed with a sauce and other ingredients.
What is noodle in Hindi?
Noodle in Hindi is नूडल (nūḍal), नूडल्स (nūḍals). See Noodle meaning in Hindi.
How do you use noodle in a sentence?
He settled for the noodles and then after watching The Jungle Book twice on video it was time for beddy-bys.
What part of speech is noodle?
Noodle can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce noodle?
Noodle is pronounced [ˈnuː.dl̩] (UK).
What is the plural of noodle?
The plural of noodle is noodles.

Words near noodle in the dictionary

  1. noodge
  2. noodged
  3. noodges
  4. noodging
  5. noodgy
  6. noodle
  7. noodle dick
  8. noodle effect
  9. noodle incident
  10. noodle strap
  11. noodle up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: noodle (page history and authors); noodle (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); noodle (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); noodle (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); noodle (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); noodle (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: En-us-noodle.ogg, En-au-noodle.ogg.

Cite this entry: “noodle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/noodle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.