kyoodle

kyoodle (plural kyoodles)

1. A mutt, dog of mixed breed of little value; noisy dog.
   • 1912, Charles Tenney Jackson, The Midlanders, page 34:

     The yelps and kyoodles had wandered home or after Rube and his idolators — all except the Widow Steger's dog, a long, strange, German sort of dog with no legs to speak of, a lonesome boyless kyoodle that had to go home early and sleep under the geranium box.

   • 2013, Red Smith, Daniel Okrent, American Pastimes: The Very Best of Red Smith, →ISBN:

     For all the breeds and breeding on display at this most elegant of kyoodle carnivals, there is a wonderful sameness about people who go to the dogs.

   • 2015, Jim Casada, The Expert's Guide to Handgun Marksmanship, →ISBN:

     Among other dodges that we employed to track down the border crossers, was a pack of hounds. These kyoodles worked fairly well if we put them on a track immediately after a rain, otherwise the sand was so barren of moisture it would not hold the scent for any length of time.

2. A loud, meaningless noise; howl or holler.
   • 1956, Eric F. Goldman, Rendezvous With Destiny: A History of Modern American Reform:

     There was a yip and kyoodle for John Brown and "the great deeds of the past."

   • 1962, Ernest J. Wrage, Barnet Baskerville, Contemporary forum: American speeches on twentieth-century issues:

     Liberals everywhere echoed the "yip and kyoodle" of the Osawatomie crowd; conservatives were aghast at Roosevelt's radicalism.

3. A large noisy collection.
   • 1900, John Joseph Jennings, Widow Magoogin, page 343:

     Oodles an' boodles an' kyoodles av id, Mrs. McGlaggerty!

   • 1992, Fantasy & Science Fiction - Volume 84, Issues 500-505, page 143:

     The Chrysler and me lit out like a kyoodle of pups.

   • 1992, Jack Cady, The sons of Noah & other stories, page 113:

     "I've heard of folks having ghosts," he said, "but I never knew a man to have a whole kyoodle of 'em."

4. A coward or quitter; One who lacks the determination to face hardship.
   • 1995, John O'Hara, The Novellas of John O'Hara, page 528:

     If I wasn't afraid of you thinking I was a kyoodle, I'd quit the business tonight.

   • 2012, Joseph Monninger, Two Ton: One Night, One Fight -Tony Galento v. Joe Louis, →ISBN, page 27:

     And the reason he says that is because he's absolutely convinced that Louis has a little kyoodle in him. Tony means Louis'll quit if he's hit.

kyoodle (third-person singular simple present kyoodles, present participle kyoodling, simple past and past participle kyoodled)

1. To make loud noises; to howl or holler.
   • 1884, The Shield: Official Publication of the Theta Delta Chi Fraternity:

     Be known as a booster and crow like a rooster; don't yelp like a bow-wow that's tied to a can; laugh, sing and kyoodle, and blow in some boodle, and help things along like a nice little man.

   • 1915, Edward Jewitt Wheeler, Isaac Kaufman Funk, William Seaver Woods, The Literary Digest - Volume 51, page 33:

     And now the drought is broken, let's be joyful in our gains. Let's kyoodle, whoop, and holler for these miliion-dollar rains!

   • 1977, Richard Sale, The White Buffalo, →ISBN, page 13:

     No living thing moved upon it, not even a medicine wolf to kyoodle to the invisible moon.

   • 2002, H. Craig Miner, Kansas: The History of the Sunflower State, 1854-2000, page 8:

     There were many, he said, "who unfold their ample jaws and yip and kyoodle about old John and the Cause of freedom," who, when faced with the modern struggle for reform, "pull down their blinds [and] fasten the doors."