Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) to cuddle, to caress sexually; usu. as canoodling n., cuddling or love-making; also as adj. canoodling.

1859		G.A. Sala Twice Round the Clock 112: A sly kiss, and a squeeze, and a pressure of the foot or so, and a variety of harmless endearing blandishments, known to our American cousins [...] under the generic name of ‘conoodling.’.
1864		G.A. Sala Temple Bar Dec. 40: He is an adept in that branch of persuasive dialectics known as conoodling. He will conoodle the ladies [...] into the acquisition of whole packages of gimcrack merchandise [F&H].
1879		‘Our Representatives Man’ in Punch 15 Mar. 117/2: Then he and the matchless one struggle, snuggle, and generally conoodle together rapturously [F&H].
1881		N.Z. Observer (Auckland) 8 Jan. 163/4: The mal de mer incident, with its ‘kissing, cuddling and canoodling’.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Jan. 13/2: If yez all plade guilty, be th’ same towken yez’ll git off aisy enuff; but if yez give him th’ lashte trubbil at all by yer kanoodlin’ and philanderin’, be jabers, but ye’ll git a bloomin’ month aich at th’ very lashte.
1894		Era 29 Dec. 16/4: Little Thomas, in a song full of fun, ‘The Canoodling Couple’, was quite up to his old form.
1901		A. Binstead More Gal’s Gossip 130: So, without courtship or canoodling of any kind, Esther van Winkel and Solomon Stoomtromp stood with joined hands beneath the canopy of the chuppa.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 21 Feb. 1/1: Princess-road, Claremont, retains its reputation as the champion canoodling ground in Groperland.
1906		N.Z. Truth 4 Aug. 6/5: [heaing] Claude’s Canoodling Costs Him Seven and Six a Week.
1910		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘A Somnolent Suitor’ Sporting Times 21 May 1/3: No canoodling, no kisses, no gaslight turned low.
1914		Sport (Adelaide) 31 Jan. 10/4: Girl’s [sic] beware! The square is being patrolled nightly by a John looking for all canoodling couples .
1916		W. Pett Ridge Madame Prince 64: We’re going to take ourselves off, allowing a little time for spooning and canoodling on the way.
1925		E. Field ‘A French Crisis’ in Facetiae Americana 19: Rasp, roger, diddle, bugger, screw, canoodle, kife and mow.
1936		W. Holtby South Riding (1988) 89: Treated like a slut and you canoodling with fat widows!
1946		J. Evans Halo in Blood (1988) 82: That kind of canoodling [...] should have shaped her into a cocktail-lounge cutie.
1978		P. Theroux Picture Palace 11: They want to keep us indoors, so they get flirtatious and start the canoodling routine.
1982		P. Theroux London Embassy 141: We were [...] the classic canoodling pair, kissing on a park bench.
1999		Ian Dury ‘Honeysuckle Highway’ 🎵 Cruising down carnality canal in my canoe can I canoodle?
2005		P. Howard Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress 294: I cop him [...] canoodling in a corner with Lauren.
2010		Observer New Review 3 Oct. 25/4: I found myself wondering how long it would be before he was canoodling with the pouty blonde.
2014		C. Eble (ed.) UNC-CH Campus Sl. Spring 2014 Fall .
2020		W. Boyd Trio 193: It was a cross between a pub and a nightclub, he supposed: you could have a pint of beer or dance or canoodle in the shadowy darkness of the booths.

2. in fig., use, to persuade.

1892		Sheffield Dly Teleg. 23 Apr. 5/5: The French Government propose to canoodle England out of the brilliant position Lord Salisbury’s diplomacy has gained for her.
1894		Sheffield Dly Teleg. 13 Feb. 5/4: His lordship flung up his arms [...] with a vivacity that reminded one of the days when he used to wheedle judgesand canoodle juries.