Paddle

How to spell paddle

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce paddle

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does paddle mean?

1. nounA short pole with a broad flat blade at one or both ends, used to propel and steer a small boat.
2. verbTo move a small boat through water using a paddle.
3. verbTo walk or dip the bare feet in shallow water for fun.

Paddle in a sentence

• noun

  She gripped the paddle and steered the canoe toward the shore.

• verb

  They decided to paddle across the lake before the wind picked up.

• verb

  The children rolled up their trousers to paddle at the edge of the sea.

• noun

  The rental kit included a life jacket and a lightweight paddle.

• verb

  It takes real effort to paddle a kayak against the current.

• verb

  On hot afternoons she liked to paddle in the cool stream.

Where does paddle come from?

Language of origin: Unknown

The origins of paddle are genuinely murky, and lexicographers do not fully agree on them. The oldest recorded English use, in the late 1300s, was actually a verb meaning to dabble or play in water with the hands or feet, and only later did the familiar noun for a short, broad-bladed oar appear in the 1600s. The implement sense may connect with the medieval Latin padela, meaning a small spade or scraper, which would explain why a paddle and a small flat blade share a shape. The shallow-water sense and the rowing sense have sometimes been treated as separate words that happened to converge on the same spelling. Because so much is uncertain, the safest summary is that paddle gathered several related ideas of a flat blade and of moving through water; the doubled d and the soft -le ending are simply the regular English pattern for a one-syllable root that ends in a short vowel, the same pattern seen in saddle and ladle.

How the word is built

• paddle (single root, of uncertain origin)
• -le (frequentative/diminutive ending)