All 4 Uses of
meddle
in
The Scarlet Letter
- He looked like the darkly engraved portraits which we see prefixed to old volumes of sermons, and had no more right than one of those portraits would have to step forth, as he now did, and meddle with a question of human guilt, passion, and anguish.†
p. 47.5meddle = interfere (in another's affairs or business); or handle (something that shouldn't be handled)
- This morbid meddling of conscience with an immaterial matter betokened, it is to be feared, no genuine and steadfast penitence, but something doubtful, something that might be deeply wrong beneath.†
p. 58.8 *meddling = interfering (in another's affairs or business); or handling (something that shouldn't be handled)
- But who art thou, that meddlest in this matter?†
p. 92.3meddlest = interfere in other people's affairs or businessstandard suffix: Today, the suffix "-st" is dropped, so that where they said "Thou meddlest" in older English, today we say "You meddle."
- Meddle no more with it!†
p. 133.8meddle = interfere (in another's affairs or business); or handle (something that shouldn't be handled)
Definition:
interfere (in another's affairs or business)
or:
get involved with something where involvement isn't warranted
or:
get involved with something where involvement isn't warranted