What does "dudder" mean?

A peddler or hawker, especially of cheap and flashy goods pretended to be smuggled; a duffer.

Dudder

//ˈdʌdə(ɹ)// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A peddler or hawker, especially of cheap and flashy goods pretended to be smuggled; a duffer. UK, dated
2
Confusion. dialectal

Verb

1
To confuse or confound with noise. dialectal, transitive
"[…]Joel piled on great fires, and went off on some mysterious errand , having“ other chores to do than idling and duddering""
2
To shiver or tremble; to dodder. dialectal, intransitive
"I dudder and shake like an aspen leaf."

"[…]Joel piled on great fires, and went off on some mysterious errand , having“ other chores to do than idling and duddering""

Etymology 1

From duds + -er.

Etymology 2

Related to dodder.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.