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You are here: Home / Language / Where does the word “Flapdoodle” come from and What does Flapdoodle mean?

Where does the word “Flapdoodle” come from and What does Flapdoodle mean?

March 2, 2020 by Karen Hill

The word “Flapdoodle” is another coinage of the same nature as “flabbergast,” but of later vintage.

Its anonymous creator left no blueprint, but probably drew it from the seventeenth-century slang fadoodle, which was used in like sense.

The first use in print of the surviving term was apparently in Frederick Marryat’s Peter Simple, published in 1834, and of course this writer may have been the one who modernized the older term.

Its meaning? Twaddle; sheer nonsense.

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Filed Under: Language

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

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