intermeddle

present singular third person intermeddles · participle present intermeddling · participle past intermeddled · past intermeddled

1. obsoletetransitiveTo mix, mingle together.First known use 14th–18th c.
2. obsoletereflexiveTo get mixed up (with).First known use 15th–17th c.
3. intransitiveTo butt in, to interfere in or with.First known use 15th c.

   The practice of Spain hath been, […]by war[…] and […]by conditions of treaty, to intermeddle with foreign states.

   a. 1627 (date written), Francis [Bacon], “Considerations Touching a Warre with Spaine. […]”, in William Rawley, editor, Certaine Miscellany Works of the Right Honourable Francis Lo. Verulam, Viscount S. Alban. […], London: […] I. Hauiland for Humphrey Robinson, […], published 1629, →OCLC

   1 more example

   I must desire all those critics to mind their own business, and not to intermeddle with affairs or works which no ways concern them; for till they produce the authority by which they are constituted judges, I shall not plead to their jurisdiction.

   1749, Henry Fielding, chapter 2, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book BOOK I