[f. FUDDLE v. + -ING1.]

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  1.  The action of the vb. FUDDLE.

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1665.  J. Webb, Stone-Heng (1725), 225. His other Fables, of Electing, Feasting, Fudling, Fulling, they are beneath us.

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1670.  J. Furly, Test. to True Light, 24. Go not a Fudling, but fear the Lord.

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1871.  C. Gibbon, Lack of Gold, xxx. The fuddling commenced in earnest as soon as the lamps and candles were lit; and the man who refused to drink until he was ‘roaring fou’ was regarded as a ‘weary body’ and unfit for good fellowship.

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  2.  attrib. and Comb., as fuddling-bout, -cap, -liquor, -table, -tent; fuddling-crib, -school, a drinking den.

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1708.  Motteux, Rabelais, V. ix. We went back to have t’other *fuddling Bout.

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c. 1600.  Songs Costume (Percy Soc.), 119.

        The *fuddling cap, by Bacchus’ might,
Turns night to day, and day to night.

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1738.  Gentl. Mag., VIII. 80. The Parson hath lost his Fuddling-cap.

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1856.  Househ. Words, XIII. 544. Saunders’s *fuddling crib was a double hovel.

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1707.  Sloane, Jamaica, I. p. xxix. The common *fuddling Liquor of the more ordinary sort is Rum-Punch, to the composition of which goes Rum, Water, Lime-juice, Sugar, and a little Nutmeg scrap’d on the top of it.

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1680.  Morden, Geog. Rect. (1685), 333. The Greeks, who keep *Fudling-Schools for the Mariners, and other meaner sort of the People.

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1708.  T. Ward, Eng. Ref. (1716), 37. Transform’d the … Altars into *Fuddling Tables.

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1683–4.  Frost of 1683–4 (Percy), 6. Where ships and barges used to frequent Now may you see a booth or *fuddling tent.

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