noodly

Adjective

noodly (comparative noodlier or more noodly, superlative noodliest or most noodly)

1. Of or pertaining to noodles (the food).
   • How did he get the money? In the noodliest way in the world.1957, Moritz Jagendorf, Noodlehead Stories from Around the World, Vanguard Press, →ISBN, page 281
   • NOODLIER THAN THE NORMAL NOODLE SOUP1981, Good Housekeeping, page 345
2. (informal) Involving improvisation.
   • Mitchell likes to play off O’Malley’s singing, doubling her voice with noodlier versions of her melodies or playing call-and-response with little shrieks and tweets of feedback.1997 August, Douglas Wolk, “CHUG / Metalon / Alias”, in CMJ New Music Monthly, number 48, page 12
   • He felt the pangs intensifying, as if the noodly, repetitive sounds were some lost language he'd known but forgotten, a dialect discarded or repressed.1998 January 16, John Corbett, “Cradle of Electronica”, in Chicago Reader
3. Floppy, droopy.
   • A lot of her clothes move strangely: one dress has an exaggerated, uneven bustle, upon which is layered a long skirt made of elastic, resulting in a motion that Glaum-Lathbury describes as "wiggly and noodly."2006 May 12, Liz Armstrong, Heather Kenny, “Big Imagination”, in Chicago Reader
   • Posting the selfies on Instagram, where limbs are noodly or eyes are buggy, is meant to be silly, making it seem like the photographers take themselves — and social media — less seriously.2022 July 3, Kalley Huang, “The Rise of the 0.5 Selfie”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 04 Jul 2025