1. the act of playing music informally or improvisationally
Usage: informal
2. casual thinking or mental exploration of ideas
Usage: informal
3. catching catfish by hand using bare hands as bait
Usage: regional; Southern U.S.

1. playing music in an informal, improvised way
Usage: informal
2. thinking about something in a casual, exploratory way
Usage: informal

Examples

• He spent the afternoon noodling on his guitar.
• She was noodling around with some new song ideas.
• I’ve been noodling over that problem all week.
• The jazz musician’s noodling impressed the audience.
• After some noodling, we came up with a solution.
• His noodling on the piano helped him relax.
• They went noodling for catfish in the muddy river.
• The creative noodling session led to breakthrough ideas.