different between meddle vs intermeddle

English

Etymology

From Middle English medlen, from Anglo-Norman medler, variant of Anglo-Norman and Old French mesler, meller, from Vulgar Latin *miscul?, from Latin misce? (“to mix”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?m?d.?l/, /?m?dl?/
• Rhymes: -?d?l
• Homophones: medal, metal, mettle (in accents with flapping)

Verb

meddle (third-person singular simple present meddles, present participle meddling, simple past and past participle meddled)

2. To interfere in or with; to concern oneself with unduly. [from 14^thc.]

   • Why shouldest thou meddle to thy hurt?

   • 1689, John Locke, Two Treatises on Civil Government

     The civil lawyers […] have meddled in a matter that belongs not to them.
3. (obsolete) To interest or engage oneself; to have to do (with), in a good sense.
   • 1560, Geneva Bible, Thessalonians 4:11

     Study to be quiet, and to meddle with your own business.

   • a. 1677, Isaac Barrow, The Usefulness of Mathematical Learning Explained and Demonstrated

     The Pythagoreans who, as Aristotle says, were the first among the Greeks, that meddled with Mathematics

4. (obsolete) To mix (something) with some other substance; to commingle, combine, blend. [14^th-17^thc.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.i:

     he cut a locke of all their heare, / Which medling with their bloud and earth, he threw / Into the graue […].

5. (intransitive, now US regional) To have sex. [from 14^thc.]

Synonyms

• (to interfere in or with): dabble, stick one's nose into, stick one's oar in
• (to mix): bemingle, combine, ming; see also Thesaurus:mix
• (to have sex): do it, get it on, ming; see also Thesaurus:copulate

Derived terms

• meddle and make
• meddlement
• meddlesome
• meddler

Translations

Anagrams

• melded

English

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman entremedler (= Old French entremesler), from inter- + medler.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /??nt??m?d(?)l/
• (US) IPA^(key): /??nt??m?d?l/
• Rhymes: -?d?l

Verb

intermeddle (third-person singular simple present intermeddles, present participle intermeddling, simple past and past participle intermeddled)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To mix, mingle together. [14^th-18^thc.]
2. (obsolete, reflexive) To get mixed up (with). [15^th-17^thc.]
3. (intransitive) To butt in, to interfere in or with. [from 15^thc.]
   • 1623, Francis Bacon, A Discourse of a War with Spain

     The practice of Spain hath been, […] by war{{..}} and […] by conditions of treaty, to intermeddle with foreign states.

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Book I, Ch.2:

     I must desire all those critics to mind their own business, and not to intermeddle with affairs or works which no ways concern them; for till they produce the authority by which they are constituted judges, I shall not plead to their jurisdiction.

Synonyms

• butt in, meddle