oodles

Meaning

Chiefly followed by of: an unspecified large amount, number, or quantity; lots, tons.

Synonyms

dozens

gobs

heaps

lashings

loads

lots

piles

rafts

scads

scores

slews

stacks

tons

wads

Hyphenated as

oo‧dles

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈuːd(ə)lz/

Etymology

Uncertain; perhaps from scadoodles (“unspecified large amount, number, or quantity”) (US, slang) (although the Oxford English Dictionary notes this is attested slightly later), or from boodle (“whole collection or lot”) (US, dialectal), caboodle (“large collection of people or things”) (US, slang) + -s (suffix forming pluralia tantum).