Whangdoodle
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Whangdoodle is a fanciful or humorous being whose undefined appearance and essence is left to individual imagination. Other connotations may include an object of humor, something noisy but of no consequence and insignificant.
It appeared in 1858 as a title for and text within a parody sermon "Where the lion roareth and the wang-doodle mourneth," published in Samuel Putnam Avery's The Harp of a Thousand Strings: Or, Laughter for a Lifetime.[1] Possibly due to its resemblance to or formation from existing words whang[a] and doodle,[b][4] it soon became common to spell it as whangdoodle. The term appeared derisively in 1859 correspondence published in The Cincinnati Lancet & Observer.[5] Mark Twain used it disparagingly in a letter in 1862.[6] By 1877 it had been included in a dictionary.
Whangdoodle. A humorously imaginary creature, whose precise nature, form, and attributes are left to everyone's individual fancy.
Where the lion roareth and the whangdoodle mourneth for her first born. — The Harp of a Thousand Strings.
20th-century usage
The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica listed this definition in the Poker article:
