# puddle
## English
### Etymology

From Middle English podel, diminutive of Old English pudd (“ditch”), from Proto-Germanic *puddaz (compare Low German Pudel (“puddle”), Middle High German podel (“quagmire, mudhole”), Hunsrik Puttel, dialectal German Pfudel (“puddle”), German pudeln (“to splash about”)), ultimately imitative.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈpʌdəl/
* Rhymes: -ʌdəl
* Audio (Southern England):(file)

### Noun

puddle (plural puddles)
* A small, often temporary, pool of water, usually on a path or road. [from 14th c.]
** 1560, “Pſalme. xxxvi”, in Matthew Parker, The whole Pſalter tranſlated into Engliſh metre […] ‎, Iohn Daye, page 98:Foꝛ with the only be theſe welles of lyfe, / Of frayle men ſpring but podels of myꝛe, / From whom ſourdeth errour ⁊ croked ſtrife […]
* (now dialectal) Stagnant or polluted water. [from 16th c.]
** 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:And fast beside a little brooke did pas / Of muddie water, that like puddle stank […].
** 1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, Kupperman, published 1988, page 90:searching their habitations for water, we could fill but three barricoes, and that such puddle, that never till then we ever knew the want of good water.
* A homogeneous mixture of clay, water, and sometimes grit, used to line a canal or pond to make it watertight. [from 18th c.]
* (rowing) The ripple left by the withdrawal of an oar from the water.
** 1969, Charles Cuthbert Brown, Malay Sayings, page 88:I had only to see the 'puddle' to know that your paddle made it.
** 2007, Rowing News, volume 14, number 5, page 36:As the blade exits the water the puddle is very tight and dark. It is also very quiet.

#### Derived terms

* cuddle puddle
* puddle ball
* puddle bar
* puddle hopper
* puddle-jump
* puddle jump
* puddle-jumper
* puddle jumper
* puddle pirate

#### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

### Verb

puddle (third-person singular simple present puddles, present participle puddling, simple past and past participle puddled)
* To form a puddle.
* To play or splash in a puddle.
* (entomology) Of butterflies, to congregate on a puddle or moist substance to pick up nutrients.
* To process iron, gold, etc., by means of puddling.
* To line a canal with puddle (clay).
* To collect ideas, especially abstract concepts, into rough subtopics or categories, as in study, research or conversation.
* To make (clay, loam, etc.) dense or close, by working it when wet, so as to render impervious to water.
* To make foul or muddy; to pollute with dirt; to mix dirt with (water).
** c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv]:Some unhatched practice […] / Hath puddled his clear spirit.

#### Derived terms

* puddle up

#### Translations
## German
### Verb

puddle
* inflection of puddeln:
** first-person singular present
** first/third-person singular subjunctive I
** singular imperative