Wiktionary

guddle

English

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WOTD – 5 May 2021

Etymology

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Children guddling for fish in the Krka river near Male Rebrce, Slovenia, in the 1950s and 1960s.

From Scots guddle, imitative of the splashing of water, and modelled after words like muddle and puddle, perhaps influenced by Scots gutter (“to spatter with mud”).[1][2]

Pronunciation

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Verb

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guddle (third-person singular simple present guddles, present participle guddling, simple past and past participle guddled)

  1. (transitive, intransitive, Scotland, fishing) To catch (fish) with the hands, especially by groping at the bank of a stream or under stones.
    Synonym: (usually of large catfish) noodle

Derived terms

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Translations

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References

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  1. ^ “guddle, v., n.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors, The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh: Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976, →OCLC.
  2. ^ “gutter, n., v.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors, The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh: Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976, →OCLC.

Further reading

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Scots

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Etymology

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Unknown, but see etymology of English section.

Verb

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guddle

  1. To catch fish with the hands, especially by groping under stones or at the banks of a stream.
  2. To dabble (as a duck).
  3. To play in the gutters, mud or puddles.
  4. To do work of a dirty or greasy nature.

Noun

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guddle (plural guddles)

  1. mess, muddle
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