paddle

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A usually wooden implement having a blade at one end or sometimes at both ends, used without an oarlock to propel a canoe or small boat.
2. n. Any of various implements resembling the paddle of a boat or canoe, as:
3. n. An iron tool for stirring molten ore in a furnace.
4. n. A tool with a shovellike blade used to mix materials in glassmaking.
5. n. A potter's pallet.
6. n. A narrow board used to beat clothes when laundering by hand.
7. n. A flattened board used to administer physical punishment.
8. n. Sports A light wooden or plastic racket used in playing table tennis, platform tennis, and similar games.
9. n. A board on a paddle wheel.
10. n. A flipper or flattened appendage of certain animals.
11. n. Botany See pad¹.
12. n. The act of paddling.
13. v. Nautical To propel a watercraft with paddles or a paddle.
14. v. Nautical To row slowly and gently.
15. v. To move through water by means of repeated short strokes of the limbs.
16. v. Nautical To propel (a watercraft) with paddles or a paddle.
17. v. Nautical To convey in a watercraft propelled by paddles.
18. v. To spank or beat with a paddle, especially as a punishment.
19. v. To stir or shape (material) with a paddle.
20. v. To dabble about in shallow water; splash gently with the hands or feet.
21. v. To move with a waddling motion; toddle.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To finger idly or fondly; toy or trifle with the fingers, as in fondling.
2. To dabble or play about in or as in water.
3. To sail or swim along or about with short strokes of a paddle or oar; row or move about or along by means of a paddle.
4. To move along by means of paddles or float-boards, as a steamboat.
5. To move in the water by means of webbed feet, flippers, or fins, as a duck, turtle, fish, penguin, etc.
6. To finger; play with; toy with.
7. To propel by paddle or oar: as, to paddle a canoe.
8. To strike with the open hand, or with some flat object, as a board; spank.
9. n. An oar; specifically, a sort of short oar having one blade or two (one at each end), held in the hands (not resting in the rowlock) and dipped into the water with a more or less vertical motion: used especially for propelling canoes.
10. n. The blade or broad part of an oar.
11. n. In zoology: A fore limb constructed to answer the purpose of a fin or flipper, as that of a penguin, a whale, a sea-turtle, a plesiosaurus, or an ichthyosaurus. See cuts under Ichthyosaurus and penguin.
12. n. In Ctenophora, one of the rows of cilia which run parallel with the longitudinal canals of the body; a ctenophore or paddle-row.
13. n. The long flat snout of the paddle-fish.
14. n. One of the float-boards placed on the circumference of the paddle-wheel of a steamboat.
15. n. A panel made to fit the openings left in lock-gates and sluices for the purpose of letting the water in and out as may be required; a clough.
16. n. An implement with a flat broad blade and a handle, resembling a paddle. Specifically— In glass-making, a somewhat shovel-shaped implement used for stirring and mixing the materials
17. n. The lump-fish, Cyclopterus lumpus. See pad-dlecock. Also cockpaidle.
18. n. A small spade, especially a small spade used to clean a plow; a plow-staff; a paddle-staff.
19. To throw the feet outward with a circular sweep when trotting: said of horses. Also dish.
20. In leather manuf., to wash or color by means of a paddle. See paddle, n., 8.
21. To pat, as the ore in a roasting-furnace, with the flat side of a paddle.
22. n. A tank containing a revolving wheel or paddle for washing, tanning, or coloring skins.

Wiktionary

1. n. A two-handed, single-bladed oar used to propel a canoe or a small boat.
2. n. A double-bladed oar used for kayaking.
3. n. Time spent on paddling.
4. n. A slat of a paddleboat's wheel.
5. n. A paddlewheel.
6. n. A blade of a waterwheel.
7. n. video games, dated A game controller with a round wheel used to control player movement along one axis of the video screen.
8. n. UK A meandering walk or dabble through shallow water, especially at the seaside.
9. n. A kitchen utensil shaped like a paddle and used for mixing, beating etc.
10. n. A bat-shaped spanking implement
11. n. A ping-pong bat.
12. n. A flat limb of an aquatic animal, adapted for swimming.
13. n. In a sluice, a panel that controls the flow of water.
14. n. A group of inerts
15. v. transitive To propel something through water with a paddle, oar or hands.
16. v. intransitive To row a boat with less than one's full capacity.
17. v. transitive To spank with a paddle.
18. v. intransitive (UK) To walk or dabble playfully in shallow water, especially at the seaside.
19. v. To toddle
20. v. archaic (intransitive) To toy or caress using hands or fingers

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. obsolete To use the hands or fingers in toying; to make caressing strokes.
2. v. To dabble in water with hands or feet; to use a paddle, or something which serves as a paddle, in swimming, in paddling a boat, etc.
3. v. Obsolescent To pat or stroke amorously, or gently.
4. v. To propel with, or as with, a paddle or paddles.
5. v. Prov. Eng. To pad; to tread upon; to trample.
6. v. To spank with a paddle or as if with a paddle; -- usually as a disciplinary punishment of children.
7. v. To mix (a viscous liquid) by stirring or beating with a paddle.
8. n. An implement with a broad blade, which is used without a fixed fulcrum in propelling and steering canoes and boats.
9. n. The broad part of a paddle, with which the stroke is made any short, broad blade, resembling that of a paddle, such as that used in table tennis.
10. n. One of the broad boards, or floats, at the circumference of a water wheel, or paddle wheel.
11. n. A small gate in sluices or lock gates to admit or let off water; -- also called clough.
12. n. (Zoöl.) A paddle-shaped foot, as of the sea turtle.
13. n. A paddle-shaped implement for stirring or mixing.
14. n. Prov. Eng. See Paddle staff (b), below.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. propel with a paddle
2. v. walk unsteadily
3. v. stir with a paddle
4. n. a blade of a paddle wheel or water wheel
5. v. give a spanking to; subject to a spanking
6. v. swim like a dog in shallow water
7. v. play in or as if in water, as of small children
8. n. an instrument of punishment consisting of a flat board
9. n. a short light oar used without an oarlock to propel a canoe or small boat
10. n. small wooden bat with a flat surface; used for hitting balls in various games