Sc. Also 7 bodel, bawdle, 8 boadle, 8–9 boddle. [Reputed to be from the name of a mint-master Bothwell; but no documentary evidence is cited.] A Scotch copper coin of the value of two pennies Scots, or (c. 1600) one sixth of an English penny; the smallest coin; hence, like farthing, etc., in the phrase not to care a bodle.
1650. A. B., Mutat. Polemo, 12. Whom they valued not really at the estimation of 200000 Scotch bawdles.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. ii. 29/2. A Bodel, three of them makes an half penny English.
c. 1730. Burt, Lett. N. Scotl. (1818), I. 42. The bridge is … maintained by a toll of a bodle.
1820. Scott, Abbot, vi. It was not that I cared a brass bodle for his benison or malison either.
1834. H. Miller, Scenes & Leg., xix. (1857), 279. All the placks and boddles of the party.
