paddle

1. 1.

   small wooden bat with a flat surface; used for hitting balls in various games

   Broaderbat

   Narrowertable-tennis racquet
2. 2.

   a blade of a paddle wheel or water wheel

   Broaderblade

   Part ofmillwheelpaddlewheel
3. 3.

   an instrument of punishment consisting of a flat board

   Broaderinstrument of punishment
4. 4.

   a short light oar used without an oarlock to propel a canoe or small boat

   Synonymsboat paddle

   Broaderoar

Other forms of paddle

plural

paddles·

past tense

paddled·

present participle

paddling·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about paddle

What does paddle mean?

paddle means "propel with a paddle". That is the primary sense; the word has 10 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in paddle?

paddle has 2 syllables: pad-dle. The stress falls on "pad". In IPA it is /ˈpædəl/.

What is another word for paddle?

Close synonyms include dabble, splash around, toddle, coggle, totter. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is paddle a common word?

paddle is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.