Different meaning for different people

The word doodle first appeared in the early 17th century to mean a fool or simpleton. It is the origin of the early eighteenth century verb to doodle, meaning "to swindle or to make a fool of". The modern meaning emerged in the 1930s either from this meaning or from the verb "to dawdle", which since the seventeenth century has had the meaning of "wasting time or being lazy".

In the final courtroom scene of the 1936 film Mr. deeds goes to town, the main character explains the concept of "doodling" to a judge unfamiliar with the word, saying that "People draw the most idiotic pictures when they're thinking."The character, who has travelled from a fictional town in Vermont, describes the word doodler as being "a name we made up back home" for people who make "foolish designs" on paper when their mind is on something else.