fuddle-duddle

verb

To depart, to be off.

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Meanings

fuddle-duddle1

verbfuddle-duddle (third-person singular simple present fuddle-duddles, present participle fuddle-duddling, simple past and past participle fuddle-duddled)

present singular third person fuddle-duddles · participle present fuddle-duddling · participle past fuddle-duddled · past fuddle-duddled

  1. To depart, to be off.

fuddle-duddle2

interjection
  1. euphemisticFuck! Fuck off!

    What is the nature of your thoughts, gentlemen, when you say “fuddle duddle” or something like that?

    1971, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, (Please provide the book title or journal name)

Origin

fuddle-duddle · verb

From fuddle, after fuddy-duddy, but development of meaning unclear. Perhaps from the interjection coined by Pierre Trudeau (see next etymology).

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fuddle-duddle · interjection

There is an example of the phrase's use in the early 1940s, in "Mother Finds a Body", by Gypsy Rose Lee: "...when [he] asks me where I was on the night of so-and-so, I'll tell him to go fuddle his duddle". However the expression fuddle-duddle is attributed to Pierre Elliott Trudeau, former prime minister of Canada, who according to some sources said it in parliament on 16 February 1971 and repeated it when pressed by television reporters about using profanity in respect to members of Parliament (Canadian House of Commons).

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Cite this entry
APA

fuddle-duddle. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fuddle-duddle

MLA

“fuddle-duddle.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fuddle-duddle. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “fuddle-duddle,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/fuddle-duddle.

Source: fuddle-duddle on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.