Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A small pool of water, especially rainwater.
  • noun A small pool of a liquid.
  • noun A tempered paste of wet clay and sand that serves as waterproofing when dry.
  • intransitive verb To make muddy.
  • intransitive verb To work (clay or sand) into a thick watertight paste.
  • intransitive verb To process (impure metal) by puddling.
  • intransitive verb To splash or dabble in or as if in a pool of liquid.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A pudgy, ill-shaped, awkward person.
  • noun A small pool of water, especially of dirty rain-water; a muddy plash.
  • noun Clay to which a little water has been added and which has then been tempered, so as to make it homogeneous and increase its plasticity. It is used in a great variety of ways when a watertight stopping is required. It is also called puddling.
  • To make foul or muddy; stir up the mud or sediment in; hence, to befoul in a figurative sense.
  • To work puddle into; render water-tight by means of puddle. See puddle, n., 2.
  • To convert (pig-iron) into wrought-iron by stirring while subjected to intense heat, in order to expel the oxygen and carbon. See puddling, n., 2.
  • To make a stir, as in a pool.
  • noun A mixture of soil or mold and water forming thin mud, in which the roots of young trees are dipped to retard drying out during transplanting.
  • To dip (the roots of young trees) in puddle or thin mud.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb obsolete To make a dirty stir.
  • noun A small quantity of dirty standing water; a muddy plash; a small pool.
  • noun Clay, or a mixture of clay and sand, kneaded or worked, when wet, to render it impervious to water.
  • noun [R.] a low or worthless poet.
  • transitive verb To make foul or muddy; to pollute with dirt; to mix dirt with (water).
  • transitive verb To make dense or close, as clay or loam, by working when wet, so as to render impervious to water.
  • transitive verb To make impervious to liquids by means of puddle; to apply puddle to.
  • transitive verb To subject to the process of puddling, as iron, so as to convert it from the condition of cast iron to that of wrought iron.
  • transitive verb steel made directly from cast iron by a modification of the puddling process.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A small pool of water, usually on a path or road.
  • noun now dialectal Stagnant or polluted water.
  • noun A homogeneous mixture of clay, water, and sometimes grit, used to line a canal or pond to make it watertight.
  • verb To form a puddle.
  • verb To play or splash in a puddle.
  • verb To process iron by means of puddling.
  • verb To line a canal with puddle (clay).
  • verb To collect ideas, especially abstract concepts, into rough subtopics or categories, as in study, research or conversation.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb subject to puddling or form by puddling
  • verb wade or dabble in a puddle
  • noun a mixture of wet clay and sand that can be used to line a pond and that is impervious to water when dry
  • verb work a wet mixture, such as concrete or mud
  • verb dip into mud before planting
  • verb make a puddle by splashing water
  • verb eliminate urine
  • verb mess around, as in a liquid or paste
  • noun something resembling a pool of liquid
  • noun a small body of standing water (rainwater) or other liquid
  • verb make into a puddle
  • verb mix up or confuse

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English podel, diminutive of Old English pudd, ditch.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English podel, diminutive of Old English pudd 'ditch', from Proto-Germanic *puddo (compare Low German Pudel 'puddle').

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