noodle
n. countablen. a long, thin piece of food made from flour, water, and eggs. You usually cook them in boiling water and serve them in soups or with a sauce.
n. a strip, ring, or tube of pasta or similar dough, typically cooked in liquid. Often used in the plural when referring to a dish.
I love eating spicy chicken noodles for lunch.
The chef hand-pulls the wheat noodles every morning to ensure they have the perfect texture for the soup.
While Italian pasta is often served with thick sauces, many East Asian noodle varieties are designed to be submerged in delicate, clear broths that highlight the dough's subtle flavor.
Borrowed from Dutch noedel (“noodle”), or from its etymon German Nudel (“piece of pasta, noodle”); further etymology uncertain, probably a variant of Knödel (“dumpling”), from Middle High German knödel (“dumpling; small knot”), and then either: from knode, knote (“knot”) (from Old High German knodo, knoto (“knot”), perhaps ultimately related to Proto-West Germanic knappō (“knob; boy”)) + -el (diminutive suffix); or from Ladin menùdli (“small dough dumpling in soup”), probably from Latin minutulus (“very small, tiny”) (in the sense of food chopped into small pieces), a diminutive of minūtus (“diminished; having been diminished”), the perfect passive participle of minuō (“to make smaller, diminish, lessen, reduce”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European mey- (“little, small”). Cognates * French nouille, noudle, nudeln * Swedish nudel
The origin of the noun is uncertain; it is possibly a variant of noddle (“the head”). The verb is derived from the noun.
Possibly either: * a blend of Shetland Scots nune (“to sing softly, croon, hum”) (from Danish nynne, Norwegian nuna, nynna (“to hum; to sing”), originally imitative) + English doodle (“to play the bagpipes”) (chiefly Scotland); or from Norn (unattested), from Old Norse grynta, from Proto-Germanic grunnatjaną (“to grunt”), a frequentative of Proto-Germanic grunnōną (“to grunt”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrun- (“to shout”) (and thus a doublet of grunt).
The origin of the verb is uncertain; it is possibly derived: * from noodle (“to hum or sing (a tune) at a low pitch or volume”) (Shetland) (see etymology 3); or * from German nudeln (“to make music or sing listlessly; to make music or sing at a low pitch or volume, or in an improvisatory manner”) (Leipzig), apparently from Nudel (“piece of pasta, noodle”) (see etymology 1) + -n (a variant of -en (suffix forming the infinitives of verbs)). The word was probably also influenced by doodle (“to draw or scribble aimlessly”, verb). The noun is probably derived from the verb, though the verb is first attested later. The noun was probably also influenced by doodle (“small mindless sketch”, noun).
Uncertain; possibly: * from noodle (“to fool or trick (someone)”) (obsolete) (see etymology 2); or * from nodule (“rounded mass or irregular shape”).
Unknown; perhaps related to guddle (“to catch (fish) with the hands”).
Commonly used in the plural form ('noodles') when referring to a meal or a serving.