canoodle
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: compound
Etymology: The origin of the verb is uncertain; the following possibilities have been suggested:
* From a blend of ca(ress) + noodle (“to engage in frivolous behavior; to fool around or waste time; to mess around, to play”).
* From German knuddeln (“to cuddle; (originally) to embrace tightly”); or related to Low German knuddle (“a clump, a knot”), a diminutive of knude, related to Old High German knodo, knoto (“a knot”) (modern German Knoten (“knot”)); ultimate etymology unknown. Compare also Norwegian Bokmål knulle (“to fuck”), Swedish knulla (“to fuck”), both from Proto-Germanic *knuzlijaną (“to beat; to mash”) (and also compare the semantics of the Scandinavian cognates of fuck).
The noun is probably derived from the verb.
Compound parts: caress
noodle
Inflected forms:
form: canoodles
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: canoodling
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: canoodled
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: canoodled
pos: verb
tags: past
form: cannoodle
pos: verb
tags: alternative
form: conoodle
pos: verb
tags: alternative
form: kanoodle
pos: verb
tags: alternative
form: canoodles
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: To caress, fondle, or pet (someone); also, to have sexual intercourse with (someone); to make love with.
pos: verb
tags: slang
transitive
examples: He’s got a big smile on his face—who’s he been canoodling recently?
gloss: To cajole or persuade (someone).
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
slang
transitive
examples: “There,” she cried triumphantly, when her labours were finished, “it [the drawing-room] looks different now, really quite effective and ‘canoodling’.”
And above all things, do not let her kanoodle you with soft words and looks of love, because she is full of 'em. If she can't scare you, with her indignation at the outrage of arresting and searching her, she will try to capture you and make you love her. You must be as firm as adamant.
He canoodled my husband into believin' that the end of the world was comin' and it was his duty to give all his property away.
gloss: Of a person: to caress, fondle, or pet another person; of two people: to caress, fondle, or pet each other; also, to have sexual intercourse; to make love.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
slang
examples: Young Robin and my daughter. / ‘Canoodling’ too. This must lead to manslaughter.
Gerald Arbuthnot sat with her in the library all the time Jim was upstairs dying and they canoodled together on the sofa in front of the fire.
My mouth opened, ostensibly to tell him to stop this right now, I refused to kanoodle with anyone who wasn't my true love. I'd never know what I would have actually said, because he crushed his lips on mine, and my brain short-circuited.
Lydia nodded sagely. 'Our maid Doris canoodles with the postman when he comes round.' Agnes pulled a face. 'I don't know whether Megan canoodles, but she's in love with the coal-man. Personally, I do not know what she sees in him.[…]'
As Norah Jones coos sweet nothings on the soundtrack, the happy couple—played by Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler—canoodle through a Manhattan montage, making pasta for two, swimming through a pile of autumn leaves, and horsing around at a fruit stand.
You may have been a classy, demure teenager, but I was a pragmatist, a hedge-better. And it was often hedges in which I canoodled.
A camera at a Coldplay concert near Boston sweeps the audience and picks out a canoodling couple. But as they see their image beamed on to the screen the man and woman do not kiss and wave. Instead, their eyes widen in horror and they break apart: she turns and buries her face in her hands, he ducks down to the ground, perhaps willing it to swallow him.
gloss: A caress, a cuddle, a hug.
pos: noun
tags: slang
examples: She got on with the crewmen, all of whom liked her and at least one of whom, Pinky Montmorency, took more than a casual interest in her. Probably a bit of a canoodle now and then in the room behind the office.
Derived words: canoodler
canoodling
Translations: