Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. nonsense, rubbish; thus flapdoodler n., a charlatan, a politician, a speaker of portentous but empty words; also as v. (see cit. 1925).

1834		Marryat Peter Simple (1911) 226: ‘It’s my opinion, Peter, that the gentleman has eaten no small quantity of flapdoodle in his lifetime.’ ‘ Whats that, O’Brien?’ replied I. [...] ‘Why, Peter, it’s the stuff they feed fools on.’.
1848		Bristol Mercury 18 Nov. 6/1: Flapdoodle, the stuff they feed fools on.
1858		Hants. Advertiser 19 June 10/3: he was administering to them political ‘flapdoodle’.
1861		T. Hughes Tom Brown at Oxford (1880) 457: ‘I shall talk to our regimental doctors about it, and get put through a course of fools’ diet—flapdoodle they call it, what fools are fed on.’.
1865		Kendal Mercury 24 June 3/5: The Fenian Hoax [...] was all what Captain Marryat calls ‘flap-doodle’.
1879		Bath Chron. 31 July 5/2: We all know what that sort of means [...] It is what Captain Marryat used to call ‘flapdoodle’.
1884		(con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 212: The king [...] slobbers out a speech, all full of tears and flapdoodle about its being a sore trial for him and his poor brother to lose the diseased.
1887		Burnley Gaz. 29 Jan. 5/1: This is mere rhodomontade and flapdoodle.
1889		Sheffield Eve. Teleg. 28 Jan. 4/3: We [...] planted uncle George in shipshape and proper manner. We wasn’t goin’ to have any highfalutin flamdoodle business over him.
1890		Dead Bird (Sydney) 29 Nov. 6/1: The deputation [...] comprised the following well-known gentlemen : — The Rev. Silas Saphead [...] the Rev. Onesiphorous Flap-doodle .
1894		Bruce Herald 4 May 6/7: The ‘Verse’ was labelled variously ‘hog-wash,’ ‘flapdoodle mixture,’ ‘slumgullion,’ etc.
1897		A.H. Lewis Wolfville 99: The people’s [...] don’t go browsin’ ’round none sendin’ challenges in writin’, an’ that sort of flapdoodle.
1899		‘Pot’ & ‘Swears’ Scarlet City 410: Their tittle-tattle, combined with his own ready wit, made the ‘flap-doodle’ [...] with which he fed the British public!
1901		Bulletin (Sydney) 21 Dec. 12/1: In an interview on his Divorce Bill [...] Senator Dobson has much unnecessary doodleflap, but he hits the nail fair on the head.
1908		E.G. Murphy ‘A Gibney-Riley Wrangle’ in Jarrahland Jingles 21: ‘All bunkum,’ grunted Riley [...] ‘A lot of fools’ flapdoodle,’.
1914		Lincoln (NE) State Journal 15 Feb. n.p.: However, flapdoodle frequently is more interesting than something sensible.
1915		M.G. Hayden ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 204: flamdoodle, flapdoodle, empty talk.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 154: Time someone thought about that instead of gassing on about the what was it the pensive bosom of the silver effulgence. Flapdoodle to feed fools on.
1925		S. Lewis Arrowsmith 340: You wander off monkey-skipping and flap-doodling with colon bacillus before you have finished with staph.
1934		H. Miller Tropic of Cancer (1963) 191: All that flapdoodle which blows out of the East like a breath from the plague.
1942		J. Mitchell ‘Professor Sea Gull’ in Joe Gould’s Secret (1996) 13: The Oral History is a great hodgepodge of [...] gab, palaver, hogwash, flapdoodle, and malarkey.
1957		R.P. Smith ‘The Goofy Girls’ in Russell Permanent Playboy (1959) 139: I was a sad bird all full of cosmic ideas [...] and flapdoodle.
1966		C. Stead Cotters’ England (1980) 152: No wonder the thought of death attracts him. It’s a comfort when life has betrayed you. There’s an end to the shame and flapdoodle!
1968		T. Wolfe Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1969) 113: India — the East — with all the ancient flapdoodle of Gautama Buddha or the Rig-Veda blowing in like mildew.
1972		L. Bangs in Psychotic Reactions (1988) 115: Why waste space with repeated choruses, instrumental breaks [...] or any of that flapdoodle.
1986		W. Goodman N.Y. Times 21 June n.p.: The allegation is flapdoodle [R].
1993		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read How to Shoot Friends 30: The poor chaps had been assigned to check out some flapdoodle about a prisoner who committed suicide.
2005		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper 4 125: Without such a Bill of Rights,the republic talk is total flap doodle.
2015		Intelligent Life (Economist, UK) Sept./Oct. 114/1: It is a glorious feat of flapdoodle.
2022		D.A. Green Law & Policy Blog 27 Feb. 🌐 The phrase ‘stewardship and care’ looks like it should be a legal phrase. It [...] has a nice legalish comforting ring to it. But it is flapdoodle.

2. (US) any thing.

1924

C.E. Mulford Hopalong Cassidy Returns 311: Down our way we use beans; red an’ white beans. These here flapdoodles are just as good, though. Low deals?

3. a fuss, an uproar.

1947		N. Streatfeild Grass in Piccadilly 175: You know all that flapdoodle of everybody rushing round.
1958		A. Buckeridge Jennings’ Little Hut 156: I thought it was royalty, at least, judging by all this flapdoodle.