The Collaborative International Dictionary
Intermeddle \In`ter*med"dle\, v. i. [OE. entremedlen, entermellen, to mix together, OF. entremedler, entremeller, entremesler, F. entrem[^e]ler. See Inter-, and Meddle.] To meddle with the affairs of others; to meddle officiously; to interpose or interfere improperly; to mix or meddle with.
The practice of Spain hath been, by war and by
conditions of treaty, to intermeddle with foreign
states.
--Bacon.
Syn: To interpose; interfere. See Interpose.
Intermeddle \In`ter*med"dle\, v. t. To intermix; to mingle. [Obs.]
Many other adventures are intermeddled.
--Spenser.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
vb. (context obsolete transitive English) To mix, mingle together. (14th-18thc.)
Usage examples of "intermeddle".
That the intermeddling of any State or States, or their citizens, to abolish slavery in the District, or any of the Territories, on the ground, or under the pretext, that it is immoral or sinful, or the passage of any act or measure of Congress with that view, would be a direct and dangerous attack on the institutions of all the slaveholding States.
And here I strictly forbid all male critics to intermeddle with a circumstance which I have recounted only for the sake of the ladies, and upon which they only are at liberty to comment.
Johnson had, before this, dictated to me a law-paper, upon a question purely in the law of Scotland, concerning `vicious intromission', that is to say, intermeddling with the effects of a deceased person, without a regular title.
It smote her with the wretched conviction, that Providence intermeddled not in these petty wrongs of one individual to his fellow, nor had any balm for these little agonies of a solitary soul.
The Roman laws were not made under the same circumstances as ours: at Rome every ignorant pretender intermeddled with physic.
Although a man has a perfect right to stand by and see his neighbor's property destroyed, or, for the matter of that, to watch his neighbor perish for want of his help, yet if he once intermeddles he has no longer the same freedom.
A carpenter need not go to work upon another man's house at all, but if he accepts the other's confidence and intermeddles, he cannot stop at will and leave the roof open to the weather.
He means to intermeddle with a certain thing in a certain way, and it is just that intended intermeddling for which he is sued.
It might be answered, to be sure, that it is not for intermeddling with property, but for intermeddling with the plaintiff's property, that a man is sued.
It does not become unjust to hold a person liable for unauthorized intermeddling with another's property, until there arises the practical necessity for rapid dealing.