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Paddy vs Waddy - What's the difference?

paddy | waddy |

As nouns the difference between paddy and waddy

is that paddy is rice, before it is milled while waddy is a cowboy.

As an adjective paddy

is low; mean; boorish; vagabond.

As a proper noun Paddy

is an Irish nickname for Patrick.

paddy

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) .

Noun

(paddies)
  • Rice, before it is milled.
  • An irrigated or flooded field where rice is grown.

    • See also

    * paddy paw

    Etymology 2

    English dialect .

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (obsolete) Low; mean; boorish; vagabond.
  • * Digges (1585)
  • * John Lothrop Motley
    • Even after the expiration of four months the condition of the paddy persons continued most destitute. The English soldiers became mere barefoot starving beggars in the streets
    (Webster 1913)

    waddy

    English

    Etymology 1

    Origin unknown.

    Alternative forms

    * waddie

    Noun

    (waddies)
  • (colloquial) A cowboy.
  • * 1992 , , All the Pretty Horses ,
    • This is how it was with the old waddies , aint it?
  • * 1968 , , True Grit ,
    • If I ever meet one of you Texas waddies that says he never drank from a horse track I think I will shake his hand and give him a Daniel Webster cigar.

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) .

    Noun

    (waddies)
  • (Australia) A war club used by Aboriginal Australians; a nulla nulla.
  • * 1839 , William Mann, Six Years' Residence in the Australian Provinces , page 156,
    • After waiting for some time, and nothing being done, I began to think that the settlement tribes were afraid of the mountaineers, whose chosen warriors advanced in a line, striking their shields with their waddies', singing their war-cry, wa-ah ! wa-ah ! wa-ah ! aa-ho ! aa-ho ! aa-ho ! hi-hi-hi !—I should have told you that many of the Amity Paint tribe, which is more numerous than the other two settlement tribes, were deficient of spears and shields, having nothing but ' waddies and boomerangs.
  • * 1840 May—August, (editor), Van Diemen's Land'', ''The Colonial Magazine and Commercial-maritime Journal , Volume 2, page 76,
    • In the mean while women, children, and remote stock-keepers fell under the unerring spears or death-dealing waddies of an enemy, the first indication of whose appearance was consectaneous with the stroke that reft his victim of life.
  • * 2008 , Doreen Kartinyeri, Sue Anderson, Doreen Kartinyeri: My Ngarrindjeri Calling , page 20,
    • The kids would copy the men to make their own cricket stumps, but no-one was allowed to touch Grandfather's special wood for making waddies .