riddling
Appearance
English
[edit]Etymology 1
[edit]From Middle English redel, redels, from Old English rǣdels, rǣdelse (“counsel, opinion, imagination, riddle”). More at riddle.
Verb
[edit]riddling
- present participle and gerund of riddle (“to speak ambiguously or answer a question”)
- 1953 September, “Restoring British Permanent Way to Prewar Standards”, in Railway Magazine, page 584:
- Track work had to be confined largely to the vital aspects of alignment and level, and the finer points of track maintenance, as well as such matters as the riddling and cleaning of ballast, proper care of drainage and formation, cuttings, and embankments, suffered considerable neglect.
Noun
[edit]riddling (plural riddlings)
- The posing or solving of a riddle.
- 2015, W. K. Wimsatt, Hateful Contraries: Studies in Literature and Criticism, page 94:
- Hence the laughter of ridicule, whether spontaneous or incited by words, and hence too the laughter of wit, which has an intermediate ancestry in such mental tussles or riddlings as may at one time have taken the place of more savage physical strife.
Etymology 2
[edit]From Middle English riddil, ridelle (“sieve”). More at riddle.
Verb
[edit]riddling
- present participle and gerund of riddle (“to sieve or fill with holes”)
Noun
[edit]riddling (plural riddlings)
- Material removed by riddling, or sieving.
- 1832, The Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, volume 3, page 989:
- The good grain is riddled by hand into a heap at a convenient part of the barn, and the riddlings are thrown among the stuff which descends to the floor through the other spout.
Adjective
[edit]riddling (comparative more riddling, superlative most riddling)
- Enfilled with or spread throughout; permeating; pervading.
- 1624, John Donne, “1. Meditation”, in Deuotions upon Emergent Occasions, and Seuerall Steps in My Sicknes: […], London: […] A[ugustine] M[atthews] for Thomas Iones, →OCLC, page 8:
- O perplex'd diſcompoſition, O ridling diſtemper, O miſerable condition of Man.
Etymology 3
[edit]From Middle English ridlen. More at riddle.
Verb
[edit]riddling
- present participle and gerund of riddle (“to plait”)
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English non-lemma forms
- English verb forms
- English terms with quotations
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English adjectives