intermeddle

From Anglo-Norman entremedler (= Old French entremesler), from inter- + medler.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌɪntəˈmɛd(ə)l/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌɪntɚˈmɛdəl/

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• Rhymes: -ɛdəl

intermeddle (third-person singular simple present intermeddles, present participle intermeddling, simple past and past participle intermeddled)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To mix, mingle together. [14^th-18^thc.]
   • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter xv, in Le Morte Darthur, book XVII:

     Ryghte soo entryd he in to the chamber and cam toward the table of syluer / and whanne he came nyghe he felte a brethe that hym thoughte hit was entremedled with fyre whiche smote hym so sore in the vysage that hym thoughte it brente vysage / and there with he felle to the erthe and had no power to aryse

2. (obsolete, reflexive) To get mixed up (with). [15^th-17^thc.]
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 29, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes, […], book II, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:

     Amongst our other disputation, that of Fatum, hath much entermedled it selfe […].

3. (intransitive) To butt in, to interfere in or with. [from 15^thc.]
   • Francis Bacon

     The practice of Spain hath been, by war and by conditions of treaty, to intermeddle with foreign states.

   • 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Book I, Ch.2:

     I must desire all those critics to mind their own business, and not to intermeddle with affairs or works which no ways concern them; for till they produce the authority by which they are constituted judges, I shall not plead to their jurisdiction.

• butt in, meddle