spuddle

1. (by extension, chiefly dialect) To shallowly dig or stir up in an unsystematic manner.Examples: "Instead of an "occasional gardener" to trim up the walks, and to hoe, your wife will be as happy as a queen, and your daughters as princesses, to spuddle about now and then, and have little flower gardens, and herb beds."; "Hee grubs and spuddles for his prey in muddy holes and obscure cauernes, my Mufe ferrits base debaushed wretches in their swinish dens."; "Leviathan fouls and spuddles again my possessions and my father's house"broadlydialectal

2. (obsolete, Southern England) To make a lot of fuss about trivial things, as if they were importantExamples: "During all the years that I spuddled around in a porcelain bath tub in a city I was given to regarding the farmer somewhat as the caricaturist, who wears his spring overcoat all winter and sells jokes for 10 cents each to the newspapers, painted him."Southern-Englandobsolete

3. (obsolete) To work ineffectively; to work hard but achieve nothingExamples: "In what glooın are you all left to spuddle out your way through the road of life?"; "Why you do spuddle So weak's a child. How you do muddle! Gi'e me the speäde."; ""There! that's how she do bide an' spuddle about," said Uncle Granger contemptuously."obsolete