noodle 1
/noohd"l/ , n.
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.
[ 1770-80; Nudel ]
noodle 2
/noohd"l/ , n.
1. Slang. the head.
2. a fool or simpleton.
[ 1745-55; perh. var. of NODDLE (with oo from FOOL) ]
noodle 3
/noohd"l/ , v. , noodled, noodling .
v.i.
1. to improvise a musical passage in a casual manner, esp. as a warm-up exercise.
2. Informal.
a. to play; toy: to noodle with numbers as a hobby.
b. to improvise, experiment, or think creatively: The writers noodled for a week and came up with a better idea for the ad campaign.
v.t.
3. Informal.
a. to manipulate or tamper with: She denied that she had noodled the statistics to get a favorable result.
b. to make or devise freely as an exercise or experiment (sometimes fol. by up ): The architects noodled up a model of a solar house.
4. noodle around , Informal. to play, experiment, or improvise.
[ 1935-40, Amer.; orig. uncert. ]