boodle (BOOD-l) noun
An illegal payment, as in graft.
verb intr.
To take money dishonestly, especially from graft.
[From Dutch boedel (property).]
Today's word in Visual Thesaurus: http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=boodle
-Anu Garg (garg wordsmith.org) Hmmm, the original Dutch definition (printed above in red) sounds like it would be the root of the expression "the whole kit and ka-boodle" - which means ALL of your property.
That said, I wonder how it went from meaning
property to meaning
making money dishonestly.
I have always read this slang word as pertaining to property "stolen" and in the possession of a thief.
I seem to remember the term used in the Raffles books and in Leslie Charteris' series of books about his character "The Saint."
This would give the word a meaning similar to "swag".
GAJ
I attended the US Military Academy (West Point) from 1973-1974. They used the term "boodle" to refer to personal items, especially food, that we kept separate from the items we were issued (uniforms, other clothing, weapons, bedding,etc.), so at West Point the word "boodle" was used in a way that was closer to the original Dutch meaning of property. There was no implication that our boodle was obtained by illegal means.
I've been using this word for mor than 20 years, to mean a private stash especially of money, that others may not know of. No conotations of it being illegal.
It was reported to me as being Yiddish. Since I don't speak Yiddish and am not Jewish..have no idea how this meaning got started.
Might it be connected with German
Beutel 'sack, bag; coin-purse', which in turn seems to be from PIE *
bheu- 'to be, exist; grow', cf. German
Bauch 'belly, stomach',
Beuele 'bump, swelling; knob',
Busen 'bust, bosom', English
build, etc.
and booty?
Probably so. I took a quick look in a Dutch etymological dictionary yesterday and saw that Du boedel 'property, inheritance' is related to English booth and is connected to the same root bheu- in its zero grade. English booty 'plunder' is from Low German bute 'exchange'; AAVE booty 'ass' is possibly a modification of body.
"Might it be connected with German Beutel 'sack, bag"
Looked good to me, then I realized that beutel is pronounced 'boy-tel'.
To verify pronunuciation (how much we forget over the decades) I looked for a term I know from wine "bocksbeutel" which are short round wine bottles from the Franken region.
So i'm thinking beutel must tie in to bottle... no. In reading about the bottle I find that they may be named after "bockesbeutel' a sack for prayer books. (although buchen is book)
Furthering the sack story, but keeping "Bock" (goat) not bockes another theory is that the bottle is so named because its shape resembles a goat's scrotum, that is to say, sack.
Ahh, bocksbeutel, a bottle for an alcoholic beverage, like Bock Bier, which has a kick like a goat? No. Bock bier, often with a label depicting a goat, is possibly named Bock because it comes from Einbeck.
Anyway, I was wrong from the git-go - I always thought of boodle, bindle and bundle as interchangeable.
Looked good to me, then I realized that beutel is pronounced 'boy-tel'.
Yes, but according to Kluge's German etymological dictionary New High German Beutel is related to the following: Old High German butil, Middle High German biutel, Old Saxon bu:del, Middle Dutch bu:del, Modern Dutch bui(de)l, Old West Frisian bu:del; and without the l suffix Old Icelandic budda 'gold-purse', dial. Swedish buda 'head', Old English budda 'dung-beetle, Middle English budde 'bud; beetle', originally meaning 'swollen'. All of which are ultimately from the PIE root *bheu-. (Where V: indicates a long vowel.)
I didn't mean that boodle had been borrowed from German Beutel, but that both were related to earlier words or roots in earlier languages. New High German eu usually goes back to an Old High German iu which in turn comes from a Proto-Germanic u:. If we look at some cognates in German and English, we see how this original vocalic sound gets treated differently: German Heu with English hay, Feuer with fire, Freund with friend,neu with new, neun with nine.