"diddly-squat" meaning in English

See diddly-squat in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˈdɪd(ə)li skwɑt/ [US], /ˈdɪdlɪi.skwɒt/ [UK] Audio: En-au-diddly-squat.ogg [Australia]
Rhymes: -ɒt Etymology: The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang suggests that this is a variation of doodly-squat from 1934, probably from American slang doodle (“excrement”) + squat, used in the sense of defecating. Doodly-squat was originally the more common form, but diddly-squat overtook it in the early 1980s, and is now an order of magnitude more common in print. Etymology templates: {{m|en|doodly-squat}} doodly-squat, {{m|en|doodle|t=excrement}} doodle (“excrement”), {{m|en|squat}} squat, {{m|en|diddly-squat}} diddly-squat Head templates: {{en-noun|-}} diddly-squat (uncountable)
  1. (US slang, often humorous) Nothing; nothing whatsoever. Wikipedia link: Google Ngram Viewer Tags: US, humorous, often, slang, uncountable Synonyms: nothing, diddly squat, diddlysquat, doodly-squat, doodley-squat Derived forms: diddly, squat
    Sense id: en-diddly-squat-en-noun-yay-PcFq Categories (other): American English, English entries with incorrect language header

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for diddly-squat meaning in English (2.8kB)

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  "etymology_templates": [
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      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "doodly-squat"
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      "expansion": "doodly-squat",
      "name": "m"
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    {
      "args": {
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        "2": "doodle",
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        "2": "diddly-squat"
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  "etymology_text": "The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang suggests that this is a variation of doodly-squat from 1934, probably from American slang doodle (“excrement”) + squat, used in the sense of defecating. Doodly-squat was originally the more common form, but diddly-squat overtook it in the early 1980s, and is now an order of magnitude more common in print.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
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      "expansion": "diddly-squat (uncountable)",
      "name": "en-noun"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
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          "kind": "other",
          "name": "American English",
          "parents": [],
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      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "diddly"
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        {
          "word": "squat"
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      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2004, Barbara Sutton, The Send-away Girl: Stories, University of Georgia Press, page 184",
          "text": "I didn't know diddly-squat about development; I also didn't know that someone could be an “officer” of major gifts. “Do they wear badges?” my friends had wanted to know, because my friends, like myself, had been completely ignorant of the field of development.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, Chris Stewart, The Fourth War, Macmillan",
          "text": "Money? Power? Maybe a little prestige? Everything they worked for amounted to diddly-squat; more money, bigger houses, more and more empty air. None of them would ever know the feeling of having a purpose in life.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Nothing; nothing whatsoever."
      ],
      "id": "en-diddly-squat-en-noun-yay-PcFq",
      "links": [
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          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "Nothing",
          "nothing"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(US slang, often humorous) Nothing; nothing whatsoever."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "nothing"
        },
        {
          "word": "diddly squat"
        },
        {
          "word": "diddlysquat"
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          "word": "doodly-squat"
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          "word": "doodley-squat"
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      "ipa": "/ˈdɪd(ə)li skwɑt/",
      "tags": [
        "US"
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    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈdɪdlɪi.skwɒt/",
      "tags": [
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      "rhymes": "-ɒt"
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    {
      "audio": "En-au-diddly-squat.ogg",
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      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/En-au-diddly-squat.ogg",
      "tags": [
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      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "diddly-squat"
}
{
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "diddly"
    },
    {
      "word": "squat"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
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  "etymology_text": "The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang suggests that this is a variation of doodly-squat from 1934, probably from American slang doodle (“excrement”) + squat, used in the sense of defecating. Doodly-squat was originally the more common form, but diddly-squat overtook it in the early 1980s, and is now an order of magnitude more common in print.",
  "head_templates": [
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      "expansion": "diddly-squat (uncountable)",
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
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        "English 4-syllable words",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English humorous terms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English slang",
        "English terms with IPA pronunciation",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English uncountable nouns",
        "Rhymes:English/ɒt",
        "Rhymes:English/ɒt/4 syllables"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2004, Barbara Sutton, The Send-away Girl: Stories, University of Georgia Press, page 184",
          "text": "I didn't know diddly-squat about development; I also didn't know that someone could be an “officer” of major gifts. “Do they wear badges?” my friends had wanted to know, because my friends, like myself, had been completely ignorant of the field of development.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, Chris Stewart, The Fourth War, Macmillan",
          "text": "Money? Power? Maybe a little prestige? Everything they worked for amounted to diddly-squat; more money, bigger houses, more and more empty air. None of them would ever know the feeling of having a purpose in life.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Nothing; nothing whatsoever."
      ],
      "links": [
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      ],
      "synonyms": [
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          "word": "nothing"
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  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈdɪd(ə)li skwɑt/",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈdɪdlɪi.skwɒt/",
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ]
    },
    {
      "rhymes": "-ɒt"
    },
    {
      "audio": "En-au-diddly-squat.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/7c/En-au-diddly-squat.ogg/En-au-diddly-squat.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/En-au-diddly-squat.ogg",
      "tags": [
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    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "diddly squat"
    },
    {
      "word": "diddlysquat"
    },
    {
      "word": "doodly-squat"
    },
    {
      "word": "doodley-squat"
    }
  ],
  "word": "diddly-squat"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-24 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (82c8ff9 and f4967a5). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.