Riddling
adj, noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The posing or solving of a riddle.
"Hence the laughter of ridicule, whether spontaneous or incited by words, and hence too the laughter of wit, which has an intermediate ancestry in such mental tussles or riddlings as may at one time have taken the place of more savage physical strife."
- 2 Material removed by riddling, or sieving.
"The good grain is riddled by hand into a heap at a convenient part of the barn, and the riddlings are thrown among the stuff which descends to the floor through the other spout."
- 1 present participle and gerund of riddle (“to speak ambiguously or answer a question”) form-of, gerund, participle, present
"Track work had to be confined largely to the vital aspects of alignment and level, and the finer points of track maintenance, as well as such matters as the riddling and cleaning of ballast, proper care of drainage and formation, cuttings, and embankments, suffered considerable neglect."
- 2 present participle and gerund of riddle (“to sieve or fill with holes”) form-of, gerund, participle, present
- 3 present participle and gerund of riddle (“to plait”) form-of, gerund, participle, present
- 1 Enfilled with or spread throughout; permeating; pervading.
"O perplex'd diſcompoſition, O ridling diſtemper, O miſerable condition of Man."
Example
More examples"Track work had to be confined largely to the vital aspects of alignment and level, and the finer points of track maintenance, as well as such matters as the riddling and cleaning of ballast, proper care of drainage and formation, cuttings, and embankments, suffered considerable neglect."
Etymology
From Middle English redel, redels, from Old English rǣdels, rǣdelse (“counsel, opinion, imagination, riddle”). More at riddle.
From Middle English riddil, ridelle (“sieve”). More at riddle.
From Middle English ridlen. More at riddle.
More for "riddling"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.