MEDDLE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does meddle mean? 

• MEDDLE (verb)
  The verb MEDDLE has 1 sense:

1. intrude in other people's affairs or business; interfere unwantedly

  Familiarity information: MEDDLE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MEDDLE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they meddle    ... he / she / it meddles   
Past simple: meddled   
Past participle: meddled   
-ing form: meddling   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Intrude in other people's affairs or business; interfere unwantedly

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Synonyms:

meddle; tamper

Context example:

Don't meddle in my affairs!

Hypernyms (to "meddle" is one way to...):

interfere; interpose; intervene; step in (get involved, so as to alter or hinder an action, or through force or threat of force)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Derivation:

meddler (an officious annoying person who interferes with others)

meddling (the act of altering something secretly or improperly)

 Context examples 

I shall put them into a box and bury them in the garden; but take care that you never go near or meddle with them.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Besides, I meddle not the least with any party, but write without passion, prejudice, or ill-will against any man, or number of men, whatsoever.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I thought this made it still more dangerous; yet the strain was so heavy that I half feared to meddle.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

I’ve heard there is something of the sort up yonder, said he; but it’s not a thing as I would advise you to meddle with.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Begone, I say, and meddle not with my affair.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He had caught her meddling, I suspect, and given her a bit of his mind, and that was the start of it.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"God pardon me!" he subjoined ere long; "and man meddle not with me: I have her, and will hold her."

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Child, child! said my aunt, smoothing her dress, how soon it might come between us, or how unhappy I might make our Little Blossom, if I meddled in anything, a prophet couldn't say.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Beware how you meddle with him, or you'll have to deal with me.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

We can't meddle safely in such matters, and had better not get 'romantic rubbish' as you call it, into our heads, lest it spoil our friendship.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)