Dictionary
Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.
meddle and make en · VERB
Meanings
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(in the negative, obsolete) To intrude oneself into another person's concerns.
She is the most unquiet person I know; cannot be still—meddles and makes about every thing and every body.
1840, Ellen Pickering, chapter 5, in The Quiet Husband, volume I, London: T.&.W. Boone, page 162:Hold your foolish Tongue, Mr. Metal, said she, and get you to-bed; have’nt I plague enough with this audacious Slut, do you think, without your meddling and making?
1756, anonymous author, Emily; or, The History of a Natural Daughter, London: F. Noble & J. Noble, Volume I, Book III, p. 205:[…] for such kind of men, the less you meddle or make with them, why the more is for your honesty.
1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:“Nay, I must not meddle or make in this business,” said the Shaker.
“You did meddle and make in it once,” retorted Ford, unresentfully but inflexibly […]
1880, William Dean Howells, chapter 27, in The Undiscovered Country, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 399:For it is accounted a disgrace for the man to meddle or make with those affairs, that properly do belong unto the Woman.
1681, Robert Knox, An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon, London: Richard Chiswell, Part III, Chapter 7, p. 91:
Forms