Word of the Day:

“There seems to be very little information out there about Krinkles, the star of a commercial so disturbing its eternal afterlife on the internet is guaranteed: it’s probably all in a heavily guarded facility in Area 51. In the ad, this raddled gentleman pokes his head out of what appears to be a kennel after what was clearly a heavy night, crashes his way through the scenery, then eats some cereal.” — Emma Beddington, The Guardian (London, England), 31 Jan. 2024

More example sentences

The origins of raddled are a bit of a riddle, but they may have something to do with rodel, the Middle English precursor to ruddle. Rattled? No need to get red-faced, we’re here to explain. Rodel, like ruddle, refers to red ocher, a red pigment used for (among other things) marking animals, and especially sheep. Etymologists believe that both the noun raddle (also meaning “red ocher”) and verb raddle (“to mark or paint with raddle”) come from a variant of rodel. A raddled sheep is a sheep marked with red dye (as at shearing or breeding time). Over time, the verb raddle was applied more broadly to the reddening of anything, and often to reddening by use (or overuse) of rouge on a person’s face to conceal wrinkles caused by age or exhaustion. To be raddled thusly was not a compliment, and may have led to the “worn out” sense of the adjective raddled. The “confused” sense of raddled is often associated with the influence of alcohol, possibly due to the “reddening” effects of a tipple on one’s visage.