Muddle vs Ruddle - What's the difference?
muddle | ruddle |
To mix together, to mix up; to confuse.
To mash slightly for use in a cocktail.
To dabble in mud.
To make turbid or muddy.
* L'Estrange
To think and act in a confused, aimless way.
To cloud or stupefy; to render stupid with liquor; to intoxicate partially.
* Bentley
* Arbuthnot
To waste or misuse, as one does who is stupid or intoxicated.
* Hazlitt
A mixture; a confusion; a garble.
A form of red ochre sometimes used to mark sheep
To mark something with red ochre.
To raddle or twist.
As verbs the difference between muddle and ruddle
is that muddle is to mix together, to mix up; to confuse while ruddle is to mark something with red ochre.As nouns the difference between muddle and ruddle
is that muddle is a mixture; a confusion; a garble while ruddle is a form of red ochre sometimes used to mark sheep.muddle
English
Verb
(muddl)- Young children tend to muddle their words.
- He muddled the mint sprigs in the bottom of the glass.
- (Jonathan Swift)
- He did ill to muddle the water.
- Their old master Epicurus seems to have had his brains so muddled and confounded with them, that he scarce ever kept in the right way.
- often drunk, always muddled
- They muddle it [money] away without method or object, and without having anything to show for it.
Derived terms
* muddler (agent noun) * muddle along * muddle through * muddle upNoun
(en noun)- The muddle of nervous speech he uttered did not have much meaning.