roly-poly

Meanings

Adjective

• Short and plump.
• Moving with a roll and sway.

Adverb

• By rolling, so as to roll.
• Directly, without hesitating.

Noun

• A short, plump person.
• A steamed pudding made from suet pastry containing jam or fruit.
• A forward roll or sideways roll.
• A terrestrial crustacean of suborder Oniscidea; pill bug, potato bug or sowbug.
• A toy that rights itself when pushed over.
• An old game in which balls are bowled into holes or thrown into hats placed on the ground.

Origin

• Apparently from roll with -y, reduplication with change of the initial consonant perhaps influenced by poll. Attested (sometimes spelled rowle-powle) since the seventeenth century. Compare rolly, which is attested since the nineteenth century.