noddy

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A dunce or fool; a simpleton.
2. n. Any of several terns of the genera Anous and Micranous, found in tropical waters and having a dark brown or black color with a white or gray head.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A simpleton; a fool.
2. n. A large dark-colored tern or sea-swallow of the subfamily Sterninæ and the group Anoëæ or genus Anoüs, found on most tropical and warm-temperate sea-coasts: so called from their apparent stupidity. The several species are much alike, having a sooty-brown or fuliginous plumage, with the top of the head white, the bill and feet black, large pointed wings, and long graduated tail. The common noddy is Anoüs stolidus, which abounds on the southern Atlantic coast of the United states and elsewhere. See cut under Anoüs.
3. n. The murre, Lomvia troile.
4. n. The ruddy duck, Erismatura rubida.
5. n. An old game of cards, supposed to have been played like cribbage.
6. n. The knave in this game.
7. n. A kind of four-wheeled cab with the door at the back, formerly in use.
8. To make a fool of.
9. n. A device designed to show the oscillation of the support of a pendulum. It consists of an inverted pendulum held in a vertical position by a reed or spring connecting it with its support. The force tending to restore the noddy to the vertical is the excess of the force of the spring over the moment of gravity, and its oscillation is therefore generally slow.

Wiktionary

1. n. television A cutaway scene of a television interviewer nodding, used to cover an editing gap in an interview.
2. n. A stupid or silly person.
3. n. Any of several stout-bodied, gregarious terns of the genera Anous and Procelsterna, found in tropical seas.
4. n. dated A small two-wheeled vehicle drawn by a single horse.
5. n. An inverted pendulum consisting of a short vertical flat spring which supports a rod having a bob at the top; used for detecting and measuring slight horizontal vibrations of a body to which it is attached.
6. n. obsolete, uncountable An old card game.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A simpleton; a fool.
2. n. Any tern of the genus Anous, as Anous stolidus.
3. n. The arctic fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis). Sometimes also applied to other sea birds.
4. n. An old game at cards.
5. n. A small two-wheeled one-horse vehicle.
6. n. An inverted pendulum consisting of a short vertical flat spring which supports a rod having a bob at the top; -- used for detecting and measuring slight horizontal vibrations of a body to which it is attached.