spuddle
A mess or confusion.
Noun
- A mess or confusion.
- There you go again, making spuddle of whatever I say. - 1987, William Lehr, Shrinking: A Novel, page 13:
- All we utter thus when bakelite spuddle Steamified and scorchy Make of our tongue a fat Q. - 2007, David Ashbee, Loss Adjuster, page 127:
- Better to break out and seek progression. You don't want to be a spuddle. - 2022, John Glynn, Twofold:
- An argument or dispute.
- They had a right spuddle together — poor maid was crying, like, and then ' e made off. - 1996, Elizabeth Forrest, The Garbage Boy, page 118:
- Tis you they fear for spinshine and for spuddle - 2000, New Statesman - Volume 129, Issues 4481-4492, page 29:
- Us'll have a proper spuddle bevore us is done, you see if I baint right, sir!' - 2011, R. F. Delderfield, Long Summer Day:
Origin
Possibly from the Middle English term for a short knife, by extension, leading to the shallow plow, and from there to other more metaphoric meanings. Related to spud.
Forms
Noun Entry 2
- A patch of wet mud or similar substance, more viscous than a puddle.
- 'Twuz tit fer tat sure, in a spuddle uv mud , And everything plastered all over with blood. - 1920, Lindley Grant Long, Farmer Hiram on the World's War, page 177:
- In puddle and spuddle They staggered. - 1989, Edna O'Brien, On the Bone, page 6:
- A process combining spraying and puddling.
- A steady stream rather than a mist may be projected onto the wafer, or dispense may occur without rotation to form a “puddle." There is also a combination puddle and spray technique called “spuddle” developing. - 1987,...
- First, a screening trial using the same develop and etch times and half the reagent volumes of the established "spuddle" process performed on an APT model 9145 machine which serves as a reference method. - 1994,...
Origin
Related to puddle
Forms
Verb
- To loosen and dig up stubble and weeds left after a harvest with a broadshare or similar device.
- Do you shim those stubbles before ploughing? Answer. No; but I spuddle them, to make the ground as clean as possible. Spuddling is performed with the plough, and is of the nature of shiming. - 1785, Arthur Young, Annals...
- In order to destroy what few weeds may remain in the rows, and to give that part of the ground its due share of pulverization, and to cleanse it from the bean haulm, a plough is set to work soon after harvest, to...
- When land proves to be very foul after harvest, it is best, first to shallow, spuddle, or broadshare the surface, harrow up the weeds, cart them to a mixen, or burn them on the spot: - 1864, William Bland (of Hartlip.),...
- To shallowly dig or stir up in an unsystematic manner.
- Instead of an "occasional gardener" to trim up the walks, and to hoe, your wife will be as happy as a queen, and your daughters as princesses, to spuddle about now and then, and have little flower gardens, and herb...
- Hee grubs and spuddles for his prey in muddy holes and obscure cauernes, my Mufe ferrits base debaushed wretches in their swinish dens. - 1869, John Taylor, The Works of John Taylor, the Water-poet:
- Leviathan fouls and spuddles again my possessions and my father's house - 1993, Wilfredo Pascua Sanchez, “Gethsemane”, in Luis Francia, editor, Brown River, White Ocean, page 247:
- To make a lot of fuss about trivial things, as if they were important
- During all the years that I spuddled around in a porcelain bath tub in a city I was given to regarding the farmer somewhat as the caricaturist, who wears his spring overcoat all winter and sells jokes for 10 cents each...
- To work ineffectively; to work hard but achieve nothing
- In what glooın are you all left to spuddle out your way through the road of life? - 1780, Mrs. Gunning (Susannah), Margaret Minifie, The Count de Poland - Volume 4, page 249:
- Why you do spuddle So weak's a child. How you do muddle! Gi'e me the speäde. - 1863, William Barnes, Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect, page 20:
- "There! that's how she do bide an' spuddle about," said Uncle Granger contemptuously. - 1893, Walter Raymond, Gentleman Upcott's Daughter, page 57: