"scrawl aimlessly," 1935, perhaps from dialectal doodle, dudle "fritter away time, trifle," or associated with dawdle (which might be the source of the dialect word). It also was a noun meaning "simple fellow" from 1620s.

LONGFELLOW: That's a name we made up back home for people who make foolish designs on paper when they're thinking. It's called doodling. Almost everybody's a doodler. Did you ever see a scratch pad in a telephone booth? People draw the most idiotic pictures when they're thinking. Dr. Von Holler, here, could probably think up a long name for it, because he doodles all the time. ["Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," screenplay by Robert Riskin, 1936; based on "Opera Hat," serialized in American Magazine beginning May 1935, by Clarence Aldington Kelland]

Related: Doodled; Doodling.

Doodle Sack. A bagpipe. Dutch. — Also the private parts of a woman. ["Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," 1796]

popular tune of the American Revolution, apparently written c. 1755 by British Army surgeon Dr. Richard Schuckburgh while campaigning with Amherst's force in upper New York during the French and Indian War. The original verses mocked the colonial troops (see Yankee) serving alongside the regulars, and the Doodle element might have been, or hinted at, the 18c. slang term for "penis." The song naturally was popular with British troops in the colonies during the Revolutionary War, but after the colonials began to win skirmishes with them in 1775, they took the tune as a patriotic prize and re-worked the lyrics. The current version seems to have been written in 1776 by Edward Bangs, a Harvard sophomore who also was a Minuteman.

type of beetle or larva, 1865, Southern U.S. dialect; see doodle + bug (n.). The same word was applied 1944 in R.A.F. slang to German V-model flying bombs.

"sound made by a crowing cock," 1570s, imitative; compare French cocorico, German kikeriki, Latin cucurire, Russian kikareku, Vietnamese cuc-cu, Arabic ko-ko, etc., and compare cock (n.1).

"the southern United States," 1859, of obscure origin, first attested in the song of that name, which was popularized, if not written, by Ohio-born U.S. minstrel musician and songwriter Dan Emmett (1815-1904); perhaps a reference to the Mason-Dixon Line, but there are other well-publicized theories dating to the Civil War. Popularized nationwide in minstrel shows. Dixieland style of jazz developed in New Orleans c. 1910, so called by 1919 (in the name of a band).

It is interesting to remember that the song which is essentially Southern — "Dixie" — and that which is essentially Northern — "Yankee Doodle" — never really had any serious words to them. [The Bookman, June 1910]

"man who draws attention by unusual finery of dress and fastidiousness manners, a fop," c. 1780, of uncertain origin; attested earliest in a Scottish border ballad:

I've heard my granny crack

O' sixty twa years back

When there were sic a stock of Dandies O

etc. In that region, Dandy is diminutive of Andrew (as it was in Middle English generally). OED notes that the word was in vogue in London c. 1813-1819. His female counterpart was a dandizette (1821) with French-type ending.

Meaning "anything superlative or fine" is from 1786. As an adjective, "characteristic of a dandy, affectedly neat and trim," by 1813; earlier in the sense of "fine, splendid, first-rate" (1785) and in this sense it was very popular c. 1880-1900.

DANDY was first applied half in admiration half in derision to a fop about the year 1816. John Bee (Slang Dict., 1823) says that Lord Petersham was the chief of these successors to the departed Macaronis, and gives, as their peculiarities, 'French gait, lispings, wrinkled foreheads, killing king's English, wearing immense plaited pantaloons, coat cut away, small waistcoat, cravat and chitterlings immense, hat small, hair frizzled and protruding.' [Farmer and Henley, "Slang and its Analogues," 1891]

The popular guess, since at least 1827, is that it is from French Dandin, a mock surname for a foolish person used in 16c. by Rabelais (Perrin Dandin), also by Racine, La Fontaine, and Molière, from dandiner "to walk awkwardly, waddle" (cognate to English dandle.) Farmer rejects this and derives it from dandyprat, an Elizabethan word for "a dwarf; a page; a young or insignificant person," originally (early 16c.) the name of a small silver coin. Both words are of unknown origin, and OED finds the connection of both to dandy to be "without any apparent ground." English dandy was itself borrowed into French c. 1830.

Dictionaries of the Scots Language posits the term might be a back-formation from dandilly, a dialectal word defined as "One who is spoiled or rendered foolish by being too much made of." It is probably derived from dandle, though the term is also an alternate name for a dandelion.

Jack-a-Dandy, or Jack O'Dandy figures in writings from the early 17c. He is listed among other famous Jacks in "Iack a Lent" (1620) and is sometimes defined as an impertinent little man, but other uses are unclear as to sense and in at least one instance from 1620s he is a bogeyman character. By late 17c. it had become a general term of contempt, often with a sense of smallness or weakness, perhaps under influence of dandyprat. In 18c. it could also mean a lover or a beau.

If she be not kind as fair,

But peevish and unhandy,

Leave her, she's only worth the care

Of some spruce Jack-a-dandy.

[ The Siren; Containing a Collection of Four Hundred and Thirty Two of the Most Celebrated English Songs. 1739.]

The verse in the famous Yankee Doodle song about a "Yankee Doodle Dandy" is not in the oldest versions and appears to be a nonsense word; earlier lyrics use instead deedle, dooble doo, etc. (For history see: Yankee Doodle.)

"tube-shaped food made of dried wheaten paste" [Klein], 1590s, from southern Italian dialectal maccaroni (Italian maccheroni), plural of maccarone, name for a kind of pasty food made of flour, cheese, and butter, possibly from maccare "bruise, batter, crush," which is of unknown origin, or from late Greek makaria "food made from barley."

Originally known as a leading food of Italy (especially Naples and Genoa), it was used in English by 1769 to mean "a fop, a dandy" ("typical of elegant young men" would be the sense in "Yankee Doodle") because it was an exotic dish in England at a time when certain young men who had traveled the continent were affecting French and Italian fashions and accents (and were much mocked for it).

There is said to have been a Macaroni Club in Britain by 1764, composed of young men who sought to introduce elegancies of dress and bearing from the continent, which was the immediate source of this usage in English. Hence the extended use of macaroni as "a medley; something extravagant to please idle fancy" (by 1884).

1833, originally "the stuff they feed fools on" [Marryat]; probably an arbitrary formation from elements meant to sound ridiculous, perhaps with allusions to flap "a stroke, blow" and doodle "fool, simpleton."

1883, "fastidious man," New York City slang of unknown origin; recent research suggests it is a shortening of Yankee Doodle, based on the song's notion of "foppish, over-fastidious male" (compare macaroni). The vogue word of 1883, originally used in reference to the devotees of the "aesthetic" craze, later applied to city slickers, especially Easterners vacationing in the West (as in dude ranch "ranch which entertains guests and tourists for pay," attested by 1921). "The term has no antecedent record, and is prob. merely one of the spontaneous products of popular slang" [Century Dictionary].

Now, "tenderfoot" is not to be construed as the Western equivalent of that much evolved and more abused specimen of mankind, familiarly styled "dude." For even the Montana cowboy recognizes the latter. Not that he has ever seen the true prototype of a class that was erstwhile so numerous among us. But he is convinced that a person caught in the act of wearing a white linen collar, and who looks as though he might have recently shaved or washed his face, must be a dude, true and proper. ["Random Notes and Observations of a Trip through the Great Northwest," The Medical Record, Oct. 20, 1883]

Application to any male is recorded by 1966, U.S., originally in African-American vernacular.

DUDE: This does not mean "tenderfoot," as it once did. It now is used to refer positively to somebody. "Charlie's a nice dude." Occasionally it's used as a neutral noun, so you can call someone a "strange dude." [Mike Jahn, "Are You Hip?" Louisville, Ky. Courier-Journal, July 11, 1971]

"deliberate erotic self-stimulation," 1711 (earlier as mastupration, 1620s), from French masturbation and directly from Modern Latin masturbationem (nominative masturbatio), noun of action from past-participle stem of Latin masturbari "to masturbate."

The long-standing speculation is that this Latin word is altered (probably by influence of turbare "to disturb, confuse") from *manstuprare, from manu, ablative of manus "hand" (see manual) + stuprare "defile" (oneself), from stuprum "defilement, dishonor," related to stupere "to be stunned, stupefied" (see stupid). Hence the earliest form of the word in English. But perhaps the first element represents an unattested *mazdo- "penis" [OED]. An earlier technical word for this was onanism. Related: Masturbational.

Farmer and Henley ["Slang and Its Analogues," 1898] lists among the slang terms for "to masturbate" or "masturbation" frig (which they trace to Latin fricare "to rub") to bob; to box the Jesuit; to chuff, to chuffer; to claw; to digitate (of women); to fight one's turkey (Texan); to handle; to indorse; to milk; to mount a corporal and four; to dash one's doodle; and they note that it was "sometimes known as KEEPING DOWN THE CENSUS."