Sc. Also curly-doddy. [f. CURL or CURLY + DODDIE, that which has a rounded head.] A popular name of various plants with rounded flower heads: a. of species of Wild Scabious; b. of species of trefoil or clover, esp. Trifolium medium; c. of the Ribwort Plantain (Plantago lanceolata); d. of curled cabbage (Jamieson).
1500–20. Dunbar, In Secreit Place, 297. Quod he, ‘My claver, and my curldodie.’
15[?]. Interl. laying of Gaist, in Scott, Border Minstr. (1810), I. p. clx. With thre heidis of curle doddy.
1806. P. Neill, Tour Orkney & Shetland, 41 (Jam.). Trifolium medium … known in Orkney and in various parts of Scotland by the whimsical name of Red Curldoddy, and Trifolium repens, called White Curldoddy.
1847. in R. Chambers, Pop. Rhymes Scotl. (ed. 3), 204. Children thus address the stalk and flower of the scabious or devil’s-bit … ‘Curly doddy, do my biddin’, Soop my house, and shool my midden’.’
