whangdoodle
/ˈwæŋ.duː.dl̩/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
20
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
3
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- ""I'm n-n-not a tor-tor-tortoise," stuttered the curious creature, "I'm a wha-wha-whang-whang-doodle." "A whangdoodle! What's that?""
- "Bob gave the man fair warning. Told him if he ever prowled around his home again he'd better come a–fogging; the man took a chance and now he's where the woodbine twineth and the whangdoodle mourneth for its mate."
- "In the Big Rock Candy Mountains lies a happy hobo land where the boxcars are all empty, where there are cigaret trees and rock-and-rye springs and the whangdoodle sings."
- "“That wood [the Forest of Sin]” his [Little Billy's] mother said, “is full of the most blood-thirsty wild beasts in the world.” / “You mean tigers and lions?” Little Billy asked. / “Much worse than that,” his mother said. / “What's worse than tigers and lions, Mummy?” / “Whangdoodles are worse,” his mother said, “and Hornswogglers and Snozzwanglers and Vermicious Knids. And worst of all is the Terrible Bloodsuckling Toothpluckling Stonechuckling Spittler. There's one of them there, too.”"
- "For a man who can listen for an hour to Mr. White, the whining, nasal, Whangdoodle preacher, and then sit down and write, without shedding melancholy from his pen as water slides from a duck's back, is more than mortal."
- "[…]and I want you to conflumux everything got up by Mrs. Davis or Miss Lane, or any other of these political whangdoodles."
Etymology
Of American origin. First use appears c.1856. Popularized by appearing in a sermon parody attributed to William P. Brannan as "Where the lion roareth and the whangdoodle mourneth for her first-born," published in The Harp of a Thousand Strings: Or, Laughter for a Lifetime (1858). Roald Dahl uses the term in at least three stories of his: James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and The Minpins. In at least two of those stories, namely Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Minpins, the whangdoodle is stated to be a vicious monster.