puddle

plural puddles

1. A small, often temporary, pool of water, usually on a path or road.First known use 14th c.

   Foꝛ with the only be theſe welles of lyfe, / Of frayle men ſpring but podels of myꝛe, / From whom ſourdeth errour ⁊ croked ſtrife[…]

   1560, “Pſalme. xxxvi”, in Matthew Parker, The whole Pſalter tranſlated into Engliſh metre […] , Iohn Daye, page 98

2. dialectalStagnant or polluted water.First known use 16th c.

   And fast beside a little brooke did pas / Of muddie water, that like puddle stank […].

   1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

   1 more example

   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.

   1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, Kupperman, published 1988, page 90

3. A homogeneous mixture of clay, water, and sometimes grit, used to line a canal or pond to make it watertight.First known use 18th c.
4. hobbiesThe ripple left by the withdrawal of an oar from the water.

   I had only to see the 'puddle' to know that your paddle made it.

   1969, Charles Cuthbert Brown, Malay Sayings, page 88

   1 more example

   As the blade exits the water the puddle is very tight and dark. It is also very quiet.

   2007, Rowing News, volume 14, number 5, page 36

present singular third person puddles · participle present puddling · participle past puddled · past puddled

1. To form a puddle.
2. To play or splash in a puddle.
3. biologyOf butterflies, to congregate on a puddle or moist substance to pick up nutrients.
4. To process iron, gold, etc., by means of puddling.
5. To line a canal with puddle (clay).
6. To collect ideas, especially abstract concepts, into rough subtopics or categories, as in study, research or conversation.
7. To make (clay, loam, etc.) dense or close, by working it when wet, so as to render impervious to water.

   Soon the Latino warrior had bared his beefy body. His bullet packed bandolier still draped over one shoulder served to emphasize the nakedness of the torso, as did the boots and the pants that were puddled about his ankles.

   1991, Etienne, “In Enemy Hands”, in Drummer, number 151, page 32

8. To make foul or muddy; to pollute with dirt; to mix dirt with (water).

   Some unhatched practice […] / Hath puddled his clear spirit.

   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]