Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) something fancy or frivolous.

1820		‘Peter Corcoran’ ‘King Tims the First’ in Fancy 16: Would Aeneas Tims were night, / I would be his Dido!
1836		T. Haliburton Clockmaker I 131: A rael conceited critter as you een almost ever seed, all shines and didos.
1895		E.W. Townsend A Daughter of the Tenements 38: He’s not to go to work until he’s fourteen, though what there can be to teach him [...] I don’t understand, unless it is some fancy dido like this drawing.
1912		Mansfield (OH) News 7 Dec. 10(?)/3: They said that sister must not say ‘fudge’ -- not even when there was nobody but guineas around – because ‘fudge’ wasn’t a proper dido to find in the flossie’s vocabulary.
1931		E.M. Berry ‘Sawmill Divertissements’ in Botkin Folk-Say 199: We’re just hard-workin’ people that haven’t got time to indulge in [...] vanities and didos.
1952		M. McLaverty Truth in the Night n.p.: She’s getting notions now about her food, if you please [...] Didoes and fiddle-faddles she wants [BS].
1963		W.C. Anderson Penelope 182: Well, these didoes of the submarine made us kind of curious.

2. usu. in pl., a caper, a prank, a trick, an antic.

1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1887		G. Davis Recoll. Sea-Wanderer 103: And a haltercation they'll have [...] with a halter in it for somebody, if Cornish or Huntington tries any of their didoes with them fellows.
1898		Eve. Teleg. (Dundee) 16 May 3/3: The conduct of the high-spirited boys [...] in addition to the above-mentioned and many other ‘didoes,’ including the looting of a beer saloon.
1934		O.O. McIntyre New York Day by Day 12 Jan. [synd. col.] Jack Curley [...] tells of the didoes of one of the barky sidewalk salesmen along the library wall on 42nd street.
1942		W. Winchell On Broadwa 5 July [synd. col.] —The Magnificent Dope’ is an attractive comedy, mocking high-pressure didoes.
1953		Randolph & Wilson Down in the Holler 239: When a country boy ‘goosed’ the waitress in a roadside café, he was expelled at once, and the proprietor announced that ‘there’ll be no such didos here’.
1963		B. Hecht Gaily, Gaily 194: A more colorful dido for insuring an election was ‘ballot-box stuffing’.

3. (Irish) an overdressed woman.

1910		P.W. Joyce Eng. As We Speak It In Ireland (1979) 247: Dido; a girl who makes herself ridiculous with fantastic finery.
1997		Share Slanguage.