noddy

Meaning

Noun

• A stupid or silly person.
• Any of several stout-bodied, gregarious terns of the genera Anous and Procelsterna, found in tropical seas.
• A small two-wheeled vehicle drawn by a single horse.
• An inverted pendulum consisting of a short vertical flat spring which supports a rod having a bob at the top; used for detecting and measuring slight horizontal vibrations of a body to which it is attached.
• An old card game.
• A cutaway scene of a television interviewer nodding, used to cover an editing gap in an interview.

Origin

• Probably a shortening of noddypoll, an obsolete alteration of hoddypoll.
• nod + -y?
• nod + -y, coined by John Fiske in 1987.