- a narrow strip of unleavened egg dough that has been rolled thin and dried, boiled, and served alone or in soups, casseroles, etc.; a ribbon-shaped pasta.
- Slang.
- the head.
- the mind.
- a fool or simpleton.
- to improvise a musical passage in a casual manner, especially as a warm-up exercise.
- Informal.
- to play; toy: to noodle with numbers as a hobby.
- to improvise, experiment, or think creatively: The writers noodled for a week and came up with a better idea for the ad campaign.
- Informal.
- to manipulate or tamper with: She denied that she had noodled the statistics to get a favorable result.
- to make or devise freely as an exercise or experiment (sometimes followed by up): The architects noodled up a model of a solar house.
- to play, experiment, or improvise.
- to catch fish, especially catfish, with only one’s bare hands: We watched him noodle a 62-pound flathead catfish.Their video on how to noodle for some pretty monstrous catfish includes footage from several rivers in Oklahoma.
- a ribbon-like strip of pasta: noodles are often served in soup or with a sauce
- US and Canadian a slang word for head (def. 1)
- a simpleton
- to improvise aimlessly on a musical instrument
