subs. (old).—The head: see CRUMPET. B. E. (c. 1696); A New Canting Dictionary (1725); GROSE (1785).

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  1593.  SHAKESPEARE, Taming of the Shrew, i. 1.

        But if it were, doubt not her care should be
To comb your NODDLE with a three-legg’d stool
And paint your face and use you like a fool.

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  1596.  NASHE, Have with You to Saffron-Walden, in Works, III. 149. No roofe had he to hide his NODDLE in.

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  1598.  FLORIO, A Worlde of Wordes, s.v. Occipute, the hinder part of the head, the nape of the necke, the NODDLE.

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  1611.  L. BARRY, Ram Alley, iv. 1.

          Justice Tutchin.  You say very right, Sir Oliver, very right;
I have’t in my NODDLE i’ faith.

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  1620.  SHELTON, trans. Don Quixote, III. iii. 21. Let every Man looke how he speakes or writes of Men, and set not downe each thing that comes into his NODDLE in a mingle-mangle.

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  1645.  HOWELL, Familiar Letters, II. 43. I could tell you how, not long before her Death, the late Queen of Spain took off one of her Chapines, and clowted Olivares about the NODDLE with it.

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  1662.  Rump Songs, I. iii.

        God blesse Rupert and Maurice withall,
That gave the Roundheads a great downfall,
And knockt their NODDLES ’gainst Worcester wall.

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  1663.  BUTLER, Hudibras, I. iii. 123.

        He’l lay on Gifts with hands, and place
On dullest NODDLE light and grace.

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  1675.  COTTON, Burlesque upon Burlesque: or, The Scoffer Scofft, in Wks. (1725), 164.

        And could I in ingenuous NODDLE
Have chosen out a fitter model.

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  1683.  EARL OF DORSET, A Faithful Catalogue of our Most Eminent Ninnies.

        O sacred James! may thy dread NODDLE be
As free from Danger, as from Wit ’tis free.

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  1690.  Mundus Muliebris.

        Behind the NODDLE every baggage
Wears bundle choux, in English cabbage.

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  1692.  SIR R. L’ESTRANGE, Life of Æsop. Come master, says he, pluck up a good heart; I have a project in my NODDLE.

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  1705.  WARD, Works (ed. 1717), ii. 3. When ready we adjourned to an Alehouse … And there I made the Bumkin fuddle Till muddy ale had seized his NODDLE.

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  1709.  STEELE, Tatler, No. 178. These reflections, in the writers of the transactions of the times, seize the NODDLES of such as were not born to have thoughts of their own.

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  1719.  D’URFEY, Wit and Mirth; or Pills to Purge Melancholy, i. 154.

        The New with false, sham storys,
  Of which each NODDLE was full.

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  1749.  ROBERTSON OF STRUAN, Poems, ‘The Wheel of Life.’

        Then fill about a Bumper to the Brim,
Till all repeat it round, and ev’ry NODDLE swim.

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  1825.  C. M. WESTMACOTT, The English Spy, I. 188.

        Old dowagers, their fubsy faces
Painted to eclipse the Graces,
  Pop their NODDLES out
Of some old family affair
That’s neither chariot, coach, or chair,
  Well known at ev’ry rout.

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  1834.  M. G. DOWLING, Othello Travestie, i. 1.

        For fear old Brab, when he comes back, should take it in his NODDLE
To march me to the duke with him.

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  1864.  DICKENS, Our Mutual Friend, II. ii. There’s something in that, replied Miss Wren; you have a sort of an idea in your NODDLE sometimes.

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