Spuddle

Meaning

To loosen and dig up stubble and weeds left after a harvest with a broadshare or similar device..

Definitions by Sense

1. To loosen and dig up stubble and weeds left after a harvest with a broadshare or similar device.
2. (by extension, chiefly dialect) To shallowly dig or stir up in an unsystematic manner.
3. (obsolete, Southern England) To make a lot of fuss about trivial things, as if they were important
4. (obsolete) To work ineffectively; to work hard but achieve nothing
5. A mess or confusion.
6. An argument or dispute.
7. A patch of wet mud or similar substance, more viscous than a puddle.
8. A process combining spraying and puddling.

Example Sentences

Do you shim those stubbles before ploughing? Answer. No; but I spuddle them, to make the ground as clean as possible. Spuddling is performed with the plough, and is of the nature of shiming.

In order to destroy what few weeds may remain in the rows, and to give that part of the ground its due share of pulverization, and to cleanse it from the bean haulm, a plough is set to work soon after harvest, to spuddle the gratten; and for this purpose a plate of iron is fixed across the share at about four or five inches from the point, and the same axletree and wheels are made use of that were before employed for striking out the furrows; and with this plough and two horses, three acres of ground may be spuddled in a day, by setting the share point in the interval, so that the iron or fin may embrace a row on each side; and when the whole field is thus spuddled, the harrows and roll are to succeed, by which the haulm and weeds will be completely extricated at a trifling charge, and the ground be laid in readiness for ploughing the seed furrows, at which time those beans or pease which may have been shed, will have vegetated, and are destroyed by the plough; so that the farmer may from this mode of husbandry be not less confident of growing a clean sample of wheat, than if his ground had been summer fallowed.

When land proves to be very foul after harvest, it is best, first to shallow, spuddle, or broadshare the surface, harrow up the weeds, cart them to a mixen, or burn them on the spot:

Thus the Kent farmer with his long-cherished wooden plough, for which he has been the recipient of much ridicule, converts this same wooden plough into a broadshare as soon as his corn is cut, and with this ancient implement proceeds to “broadshare“ spuddle his stubbles.

Instead of an "occasional gardener" to trim up the walks, and to hoe, your wife will be as happy as a queen, and your daughters as princesses, to spuddle about now and then, and have little flower gardens, and herb beds.

Hee grubs and spuddles for his prey in muddy holes and obscure cauernes, my Mufe ferrits base debaushed wretches in their swinish dens.

Leviathan fouls and spuddles again my possessions and my father's house

And they say that in the very place where the child spuddled with his feet, the water flowed out.

Word Forms

• spuddles
• spuddling
• spuddled

Related Words

When Should You Use Spuddle?

Use spuddle when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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