hoodling
n.— «Dr. Wolf: “What is hoodling?” Mr. Ferrell: “That’s it, hoodling (demonstrates “Possum in a pawpaw patch, picking up pawpaws and putting them in his pocket.”).” Dr. Wolf: “That’s hoodling, is it?” Mr. Ferrell: “Yeah, that’s hoodling too, I guess. That’s hoodling too.”)» —“Hoodling Song” by James Clifton Ferrell in Memphis, Tennessee John Quincy Wolf Folklore Collection (Lyon College, Batesville, Arkansas) June 30, 1963. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Candace from Memphis, Tennessee, wonders about the phrase You’re eating me out of house and home. The emphatic doublet house and home is part of a long tradition that includes scared out of house and home and chased out of house and home. Even...
Sure, there’s winter, spring, summer, and fall. But the seasons in between have even more poetic names. In Alaska, greenup describes a sudden, dramatic burst of green after a long, dark winter. And there are many, many terms for a cold snap...
The word “hoodling” as an adjective comes in “Binker” a poem by AA Milne written (I guess) about 1925 … oddly (?) enough it is quoted in The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins .
What the word means in the context of the poem I have no idea at all .