Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Red ocherous iron ore, used in dyeing and marking.
- v. To dye or mark with or as if with red ocher: ruddle sheep.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Same as reddle.
- n. . Ruddiness; redness.
- To mark with ruddle.
- n. A dialectal variant of riddle.
- To sift together; mix as through a sieve.
- To raddle; interweave; crossplait, as twigs or split sticks in making latticework or wattles.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete To raddle or twist.
- n. obsolete A riddle or sieve.
- n. (Min.) A species of red earth colored by iron sesquioxide; red ocher.
- v. To mark with ruddle; to raddle; to rouge.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a red iron ore used in dyeing and marking
- v. twist or braid together, interlace
- v. redden as if with a red ocher color
Etymologies
- This definition is lacking an etymology or has an incomplete etymology. You can help Wiktionary by giving it a proper etymology. (Wiktionary)
- Probably diminutive of rud, red, from Middle English rudde, from Old English rudu; see reudh- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“There are those who think that remodelled waists and new caps had better be kept to the towns; but such people, if they would follow out their own argument, would wish to see plough-boys painted with ruddle and milkmaids covered with skins.”
“It was extracted from ruddle (red ochre) and limonite”
“Your worship," replied Sancho, "had better mark it with ruddle, like the inscriptions on the walls of class rooms, that those who see it may see it plain.”
“Such are the kinds of stones that cannot be melted, and realgar, and ochre, and ruddle, and sulphur, and the other things of that kind, most”
“All along the road the stems and lower branches of the trees are dyed a deep brick-dust color, and I hear moving and pathetic stories of how it ruins clothes, not only utterly spoiling black silk dresses, but staining white petticoats and children's frocks and pinafores with a border of color exactly like the ruddle with which sheep are branded.”
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 17, No. 098, February, 1876
“He had made himself rolling drunk and, suitably to the occasion, had been made into a Highlander by the simple process of robbing him of his breeches and rubbing his head with ruddle.”
“I now rubbed together some ruddle and dry soil, and the mixture gave a necessary touch of coarseness to her hands.”
“I tall 'ee, gentlemen, I hain't the ram-faced, ruddle-nosed old fule yeou reckon I be.”
“Jud turn'd rahnd an gurned at th 'frunt o' th 'show wi' his faace aw ruddle.”
“An Jud let floy a good un, an th 'mon wi' th 'spunge had to pick th' blackeymoor up this toime an put th 'ruddle upo' his faace just at-under th'ee.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ruddle’.
-
Open List: Sheepishness
Everything sheep, from Artiodactyla to zodiac.
lanolin, ram, ewe, Artiodactyla, even-toed ungulate, ruminant, Ovis aries, ovine, domestic, domesticated, neotenic, mouflon and 426 more...
-
CCle
all those wonderful Britsy words that end with a double consonant followed by 'le'
doddle, bobble, dibble, whiffle, waffle, diddle, piddle, jiggle, straggle, boggle, fiddle, skeedaddle and 125 more...
-
Blood Meridian: The Words
Words from Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian"
argosy, ossuary, thaumaturge, devonian, ristras, chartvail, catafalque, suzerain, argonauts, unrectified, surbated, pyrolatrous and 86 more...
-
filter
strain rain, porous apour, per-meate, extravasate, glomerulus, percolate, per-collate, bitumastic, passband, Proxomitron, reredos, sporgery and 27 more...
-
O! Timballo
for the same
tea-poy, pooking fork, ait, eyot, quodlibet, milk leg, tussie-mussie, calash, gueules, caitiff, bindery, demi-rep and 224 more...
-
Infinite Jest
Words taken from Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.
prorector, monograph, post-fourier, snuffle, rototremble, creatus, enfilade, subanimalistic, balletic, espadrilles, leonine, cirri and 1153 more...
-
Reading Reading
Words from the works of Peter Reading - at least one from each (except the Schwitters-esque erosions, cut-ups etc).
overbright, pimpled, muskiness, effuse, stoup, maul, unlevel, viscid, perfidious, glibly, aloes, drouth and 449 more...
-
Winter's Bone vocabulary
Study list of difficult words from Daniel Woodrell's novel Winter's Bone. In reverse order: start at the bottom to see words from the beginning of the novel!
plaid, lazy susan, lope, furtive, dour, scamper, hard-boiled, implacable, dainty, stomp, resignation, crank and 138 more...
-
fbharjo's Words
jumelle, kef, kenspeckle, lautitious, essentic, pilpulistic, impavid, cicurant, clou, chrysostomic, miasma, teleology and 1625 more...
-
Chromonyms
These chromonyms are defined as colors in at least one dictionary (mostly MW3). (Actually there's one fake, for reasons I'll explain someday.) They are all one-word nouns such as "kelly", which can...
absinthe, acacia, acorn, alabaster, alesan, almond, aloma, amaranth, amber, amethyst, anemone, anil and 821 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for ruddle.
yarb A lamb,
joints stiff, brittle, jabs at maternal clogged fleece,
spattered red (which is ruddle but looks already
like blood and soon must be).
- Peter Reading, Spring Letter, from For the Municipality's Elderly, 1974 Jun 22, 2008