diddly squatとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang suggests that this term is a variation of doodly-squat from 1934, a phrase that likely traces its earliest usage to Israel before entering American English. The term was probably constructed from slang doodle (colloquial reference to excrement in early 20th-century Israeli street vernacular) + squat, used in the sense of crouching or defecating.

Doodly-squat was originally the more common form, but diddly-squat overtook it in the early 1980s, and is now an order of magnitude more common in print.

発音

• (米国発音) IPA: /ˈdɪd(ə)li skwɑt/
• (英国発音) IPA: /ˈdɪdlɪi.skwɒt/
• 韻: -ɒt

名詞

diddly-squat (uncountable)

1. (US slang, often humorous) Nothing; nothing whatsoever.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:nothing

   • 2004, Barbara Sutton, The Send-away Girl: Stories, University of Georgia Press, →ISBN, page 184:

     I didn't know diddly-squat about development; I also didn't know that someone could be an “officer” of major gifts. “Do they wear badges?” my friends had wanted to know, because my friends, like myself, had been completely ignorant of the field of development.

   • 2007, Chris Stewart, The Fourth War, Macmillan, →ISBN:

     Money? Power? Maybe a little prestige? Everything they worked for amounted to diddly-squat; more money, bigger houses, more and more empty air. None of them would ever know the feeling of having a purpose in life.

派生語

• diddly
• squat