Definition of "whangdoodle"

"I'm n-n-not a tor-tor-tortoise," stuttered the curious creature, "I'm a wha-wha-whang-whang-doodle.""A whangdoodle! What's that?"

1901, Charles M. Snyder, Runaway Robinson, page 53

Bob gave the man fair warning. Told him if he ever prowled around his home again he'd better come a–fogging; the man took a chance and now he's where the woodbine twineth and the whangdoodle mourneth for its mate.

1920, Peter B. Kyne, chapter II, in The Understanding Heart

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains lies a happy hobo land where the boxcars are all empty, where there are cigaret trees and rock-and-rye springs and the whangdoodle sings.

1960 August 22, “Yarns and Whoppers and Practical Jokes”, in Life, 49 (8): 56

For a man who can listen for an hour to Mr. White, the whining, nasal, Whangdoodle preacher, and then sit down and write, without shedding melancholy from his pen as water slides from a duck's back, is more than mortal.

1862, Mark Twain, Mark Twain's letters: 1853-1866, Volume 1 (published 1987), page 171

[…] and I want you to conflumux everything got up by Mrs. Davis or Miss Lane, or any other of these political whangdoodles.

1867, John Ballou Newbrough, The fall of Fort Sumter, or, Love and war in 1860-61, page 131

"Now, Ben, you're a lawyer. You don't give a whang-doodle about anything mechanical."

1928 (Mar.), Martin Bunn, "When You Buy a Car", Popular Science 112 (3): 138

It is sometimes agreed in advance that after a hand of certain rank, such as Four of a Kind or a Full House, is shown, a Whangdoodle or Jackpot must be played […]

1940, Clement Wood, Gloria Goddard, The Complete Book of Games, page 296