doodle [E17th] If you are a doodler, you may not be pleased to know that the original meaning of doodle was ‘a fool, a simpleton’. The word came from Low German dudeltopf or dudeldopp ‘simpleton’ literally ‘nightcap’ in the early 17th century. The modern senses, ‘to scribble absent-mindedly’ and ‘a rough drawing’, date from the 1930s. The Second World War doodlebug, or German V-1 flying bomb, may have got its name from the 1930s slang sense ‘a small car or railway locomotive’, or from the English dialect use ‘cockchafer’. A cockchafer is a large beetle which flies around slowly at dusk, making a deep hum.