1842 195 Messrs. Culley and Cossey lately built a didling boat.
1863 J. C. Morton (new ed.) I. Didle (Norf., Suff.), to clean the bottom of a river with a didling scoop.
1883 G. C. Davies xv. (1884) 112 The dykes are kept clear, and the channel of the river deepened, by ‘dydling’... At the end of a long pole is a metal scoop, in the shape of a ring, with a network..attached. This is plunged into the river, and scraped along the bottom to the side, where it is lifted out and the semi-liquid mud poured on to the rond.