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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

puddle.

A small, often temporary, pool of water, usually on a path or road.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈpʌdəl/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈpʊdəl/Midlands, Northern-England/ˈpədəl/Wales/ˈpɐdəl/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. A small, often temporary, pool of water, usually on a path or road.

  2. Stagnant or polluted water.

    dialectal
  3. A homogeneous mixture of clay, water, and sometimes grit, used to line a canal or pond to make it watertight.

  4. The ripple left by the withdrawal of an oar from the water.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English podel, diminutive of Old English pudd (“ditch”), from Proto-Germanic *puddaz (compare Low German Pudel (“puddle”), Middle High German podel (“quagmire, mudhole”), Hunsrik Puttel, dialectal German Pfudel (“puddle”), German pudeln (“to splash about”)), ultimately imitative.

verb/ˈpʌdəl/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈpʊdəl/Midlands, Northern-England/ˈpədəl/Wales/ˈpɐdəl/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. To form a puddle.

  2. To play or splash in a puddle.

  3. Of 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.

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

Where this word comes from

From Middle English podel, diminutive of Old English pudd (“ditch”), from Proto-Germanic *puddaz (compare Low German Pudel (“puddle”), Middle High German podel (“quagmire, mudhole”), Hunsrik Puttel, dialectal German Pfudel (“puddle”), German pudeln (“to splash about”)), ultimately imitative.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.