Definition of "piddle"

piddle

/ˈpɪd.l̩/

noun
plural piddles
1. (British, Australia, euphemistic slang) Piss: urine.
  Quotations
  The spunk with his piddle comes bubbling.
  1870, Cythera's Hymnal, page 77
2. (British, Australia, euphemistic slang) A piss: an act of urination.
  Quotations
  Piddle, urine; occ. the act of making water.
  1937, Eric Honeywood Partridge, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, page 625
  On the way out to the gardens, he had to stop for a piddle but was so weak he couldn't maintain his balance while lifting his rear leg.
  2013, Angela Lemanis, Contemplating Life from the Back Step‎, page 84
3. (British, figurative) Nonsense or a trivial matter.
  Quotations
  It's the alteration of the little words that makes all the difference between Poetry & piddle.
  1910 March 2, Rupert Brooke, letter
verb
third-person singular simple present piddles, present participle piddling, simple past and past participle piddled
1. (intransitive) Often followed by about or around: to act or work ineffectually and wastefully.
  Quotations
  […] neuer ceaſinge piddeling about theyr bowe and ſhaftes, when they be well, […]
  1544 (date written; published 1571), Roger Ascham, Toxophilus, the Schole, or Partitions, of Shooting. […], London: […] Thomas Marshe; republished in The English Works of Roger Ascham, […], London: […] R[obert] and J[ames] Dodsley, […], and J[ohn] Newbery, […], 1761, book 2, page 136
  I watch Dag and Claire piddle about the desert.
  1991, Douglas Coupland, Generation X, New York: St. Martin's Press
2. (intransitive, obsolete) Synonym of peck: to attack or eat with a beak.
  Quotations
  As [Mahomet] was preaching... there commeth a doue flying towards him, & alighteth vpon his shoulder, and pidleth in his eare, looking for meate, hauing vsed her before to feede in his eare for the same purpose.
  1598, Richard Barckley, A Discourse of the Felicitie of Man..., page 217
3. (intransitive, now Southern US, often with 'with') Synonym of nibble: to pick at or toy with one's food, to eat slowly or insubstantially.
  Quotations
  Diseases... that make them eate nothing at all, or else they doe but piddle and trifle.
  a. 1620, Jeremiah Dyke, Diuers Select Sermons on Seuerall Texts..., page 292
  As about seven seniors quietly eat meat patties, mashed potatoes and canned peaches, Newberry piddles with the food.
  2000 May 9, Myrtle Beach Sun-News, Sect. A, p. 1
4. (UK, Australia, South Africa, Namibia, euphemistic slang, intransitive or reflexive) To urinate.
  Quotations
  Ha, ha, ha, Paddy shit in his breaches, ha, ha, ha, I shall laugh till I piddle myself.
  1784, cited in Catalogue of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, Vol. VI, p. 128

Definition of "piddle"

piddle

noun

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verb

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